Every month we need to have a staff meeting. I personally hate them, but I know they are necessary--and I've discovered that you can create meaningful staff meetings and help meet your CEU requirements at the same time. If you create a yearly schedule of educational topics and have a basic outline of topics that need to be covered, you can get ...

Hodgepodge is my word for the day, and if you follow synchronicity, then it's the pattern for my life lately.  I guess it's a good thing. That post-vacation funk is gone and in its place is the business of the new agenda. All of the new hires have moved to night shift, which has quieted my space considerably but created a head-banging ...

I hope everyone's week is going good. I wish mine was going better...I have been in a weird kind of funk since vacation. I've been back long enough to be back in the swing of things, but it's just not happening. I guess part of the problem is I took too much time off: 11 days. Someone else filled in for me (Thanks, Joanna!) so I really ...

It's sleep tech appreciation week and in that spirit I'd like to dedicate this blog to the wonderful group of sleep techs I work with. They are a mixed bag of personalities like I have come to suspect is the deal at a lot of sleep labs. But a more dedicated group of professionals you'd be hard pressed to find.  These people come in ...

Growth is hard. Our lab is planning its first offspring.  It is exciting but a little distressing.  I am learning that when you work with people who like to have control, you have to stand up for what you want. In the end, you will get what is best for the patient.  (It has taken me a while to learn this.) I have not been allowed ...

One of my jobs is to help run an ad on sleep program for the local respiratory therapy degree. We are even considering making it part of the BS degree in cardiopulmonary.  Which leads me to ask, ''Where do I see an advanced practitioner in this field?''  When I put that question out on one of the sleep bulletin boards I got a ...

So, I have been thinking a lot lately about this situation with the AASM's new credential.  My first reaction to the comments by the AASM was ''what?'' and then OMG! I can't believe they said that!  I was insulted to the core of my professional self.  Eventually, a few articles later, I became less emotional and tried to look at ...

In sleep there seems to be a lot of infighting over control of who will provide credentials for the technicians. With such a young field this does not help out professionalism and it makes our field look undervalued. The latest group to get involved is the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). They have decided that since the Board ...

The other day I had to work part of a night shift with two of my technicians. We had a patient that may have needed a little extra care, and I felt that another person might help to run the study better. When I got home, I posted on Facebook how impressed I was with the technicians I worked with. They really understand that they're on the ...

I believe one of the most important parts of management is to help to create future leaders. I don't think that nurturing new leaders puts your job in danger. It actually encourages people in my department to be better techs and to be more satisfied at their jobs. However, techs with low self-esteem can derail this goal. For whatever reason, they ...