The Role of Nursing Assistants

In medical profession, nursing assistants are important. The increased number of aged people has led to the demand for nurses. This is because aged people require much medical attention. There are many nurses who are retiring. While other fields of study open up, fewer women are choosing to enter the field of nursing that they initially dominated. Nurses have the responsible of ensuring their patient's well being, dispensing medicine, recognizing early signs of complications, monitoring the patient's emotional condition and helping the patient's family understand the diagnosis and the kind of treatment for diseases. They are exceptional trained to monitor and assess medical conditions. They implement the prescribed course of treatment for a disease diagnosed by a physician. They work closely with patients to monitor their vital signs and observe any changes to their condition. Often, their instincts are the first indication of a negative response by a patient towards the treatment administered. She has the responsibility of ensuring that patients take their medicine and other required formalities, as well as helping with basic requirements. The nurse is often a liaison between the doctor patient and their families. She can elaborate what the doctor has diagnosed and encourage both parties. Nurses also assist in the community. This is usually evident in providing medical services to rural and deficient areas where they are rendered important. They provide services to the community in health screenings and immunization clinics. They help many children with eye complications and sensitize older patients of their cholesterol and blood pressure. Nursing assistants are of importance as health facilities become dear for many individuals. They are the ones who usually come up with cheaper clinics for monitoring blood pressure, body weight and eye sight examination. Home health care service offered by nurses help elderly persons who can't live on their own yet don't wish to enter a nursing home for the elderly people. They also attend children who need special medical attention such as daily therapy but are staying at home. Nurses come up with a timetable usually prepared by the doctor in-charge. Lack of access to physicians being a problem of high cost of health care; nurses are furthering their education to graduate as practitioners. They then specialize in community health, midwife and delivery although they are supervised by a physician. The nurse practitioner has an excellent understanding of an autonomy. She can therefore participate in ordering tests, referring patients to specialists since they have the authority to prescribe. Nursing assistants and nurse practitioners as a whole have enhanced the standard of health care offered in many under-privileged societies and developing states. This has also helped in reducing the cost incurred by hospitals since they provide services that are initially offered by physicians. It is therefore creditable that nurse practitioners and nursing assistants have highly contributed to the medical profession.

Coping With First Day Jitters in the Nursing Profession

It is like when actors are about to perform in front of a crowd. They get sweaty palm, butterfly in their stomachs and rapidly beating heart. These symptoms are what we know as nervousness. Many people experience this especially when they are embarking into the unknown. The same is true with the nursing profession; a nurse feels the same way. When it is your first time to start your nursing profession you will feel some apprehension and fear. The good news is that most of us feel this way when we start. The second good news is that we can find ways on how to overcome the first day jitters. Sleep early It would be useless to worry at something that has not happened yet. The best thing to do is get enough sleep so that you will feel well rested when you start you nursing profession. This will help you be alert and more optimistic on what is in store for you. Eat a Hearty Breakfast Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I understand that you may be too nervous to even take a bit of toast but it is important that you make sure that your stomach is not empty. Think that you will have many tasks ahead of you so you better have some nourishment that can keep you energized until lunch. Arrive Early and Be Prepared Get the feel of the environment you will work in so go there a bit early so you can observe first. Also, you need to be prepared and ready to do the tasks given to you. Being prepared can be easier for you and your new colleagues because it can save some time for them to attend to patients instead of teaching you. However, if there are things that you are not sure ask question or clarify. Smile This may seem like a lame advice but as they say you gain friends with just a smile. Remember that you and your colleagues are both feeling each other out. If you feel shy, they may also feel the same way. The great way to break the ice is to smile at them. Let them know that you are there to help them. They say that the first day of work is always the hardest. There are adjustments but once you get the groove of things then you can perform your job well.

Nurses Are Fighting Childhood Obesity

For the most part, children today have access to more education options and technology than any prior generations. This has produced an amazingly intelligent and curious group of young minds. Unfortunately, it has also produced children twice the size of kids from 20 years ago. Combine constant computer use and video game playing with the kind of foods being offered and eaten, and it's an excellent recipe for childhood obesity. All over the country, nurses are recognizing the huge impact of childhood obesity and are doing their best to fight it and educate children and adults alike. Obesity is technically applied to those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) higher than the 95th percentile. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that at least 17% of children under 19 in the US are obese, and that the amount of obesity cases in children has tripled in the last 30 years. Children who are significantly overweight can develop early type 2 diabetes, and have hypertension, joint pain and sleep apnea. At the Health4Life Clinic in Georgia, nurses have implemented a program with obese children to try to change their outlook on life and hopefully change their habits. The children must have a body mass index either in the 95th percentile, or a BMI in the 85th percentile or above combined with a something like diabetes or hypertension. The patients visit the clinic once a week and create their own strategies and goals to change their lifestyle. This technique has proved fairly successful and made the children feel in control of their disease. The University of Mississippi Medical Center founded the Cardiovascular Risk Reduction in Children (CCRIC) Committee to study obesity in African American children in this state that tops the obesity charts. The CCRIC have found that children with obesity often have a harder time learning due to the fact that they are constantly teased or feel the need to goof off and disrupt class to take focus off their weight. They are preaching prevention and encouraging their nurses to teach children to cook healthy and nutritious food. They are also urging nurses to work with the parents to get on board with healthy eating, and to communicate with the school systems to provide healthier lunches and snacks. Roosevelt Middle School in Long Island has benefited from the NuHealth Foundation which implemented a $50,000 local anti-obesity program. Nurses have been given the resources to teach staff, students, and families how to properly understand nutrition labels, how to create healthy meals, and what fast food really does to a body. They also preach the 5-2-1-0, which is a system for remembering to eat five vegetables and fruits every day, limit yourself to only two hours of sedentary activities like video games and television, squeeze in one hour of exercise a day, and consume zero amounts of juices, sodas or fried foods. These examples are just a glimpse at all the amazing things nurses are doing out there to fight childhood obesity. What has your community been doing to help out?

ER Nurse Job Description

Emergency room nurses are in charge of making sure that high priority ER patients receive the care they require as quickly as they need it. The ER nurse job description below will hopefully give you the information that you need so that you can determine if er nursing is of interest to you. ER nurses provide primary patient medical care and evaluation. Often referred to as trauma nurses, they evaluate patients and give essential triage, complete treatments which can include intubation, inserting IVs as well as giving prescription medications. Some act as transport nurses, giving medical assistance to patients while they are carried to a medical center in a helicopter or some other kind of vehicle. Emergency room nurses in most cases are registered nurses who have a bachelor's or maybe an associate's college degree, or perhaps a diploma or degree from an accredited nursing training course. They also must have finished a national licensing exam. These nurses will often have many years of nursing experience. ER nurses have to be capable of making very quick decisions. They have to figure out the medical requirements of patients that may have life threatening injuries sometimes on their own or perhaps in consultation with medical doctors as well as other healthcare staff. Being able to work and also interact effectively with other people is a required skill. Nurses also need to display emotional balance given that emergency rooms expose them to cases of individual hurting not to mention emotional stress. Emergency room nurses can also work in private hospitals and also in stand-alone emergency rooms. Quite a few are employed in the armed forces and are skilled in the treatment of battle wounds. These types of conditions are usually hectic and quite demanding. ER nurses usually work long hours and also spend most of that time period on their feet. Almost all emergency rooms are open around the clock, and nurses typically work very late into night or perhaps into the early morning. These nurses also track the patients' signs and symptoms to make sure that the doctor has all of the information that he needs before seeing the patient. ER RNs also checks the patient's general well being by doing things such as checking their blood pressure, determining if there are any breathing issues in addition to finding out if the patient is on any prescription drugs. All of this lets the doctors make shorter visits, that will then help make it possible for those doctors to visit a lot more patients. An ER RN is responsible for responding to any other concerns that a patient may have neglected to ask the doctor, and they also advise patients about their medications and just how frequently the prescribed medicines need to be taken. ER nurses usually are responsible for helping with transferring patients from the emergency room to operating rooms when needed. Just about every medical center will probably have specific procedures as well as policies. Federal laws and regulations also pertain to nurses, for instance privacy act laws that forbid health care employees from divulging specific types of medical related information to certain individuals. An ER RN should be aware of and adhere to all these laws and regulations in order to help keep the emergency room operating smoothly, effectively and within the law. Hopefully this has given you some information about the duties of an emergency room nurse. But be aware that these are just a small sample of an ER nurse job description.

An Effective Nursing Resume

You have done your best in nursing school and now you are equipped with a BSN degree. The next phase of reaching your dream is to apply for a nursing job. The first step is to prepare your nursing resume. Writing your resume can seem a daunting task because you would want to impress your prospective employer immediately. Since you just got your BSN degree, you would want to show that you can be as good as an experienced nurse. So, how do you go about doing it? Credentials and License Most employers would look at the nursing school where you obtained your BSN degree. The next thing that they will look for is the license. The license is an important part of any nurses whether you are a RN, BSN or ASN. This is the first document that they will look at. Educational Achievements Since you are a new graduate, the next thing that they would look for is your educational achievement. Employers would want to know if you performed well in school. They think that if you did well in school, the percentage is great that you would do well also as an employee. The achievements that you have gotten would mean that you are really a hard worker and want to achieve success. Trainings and Seminars It is also good to let your prospective employer know about the seminars that you have attended while still studying. This shows them that you are serious in your pursuit of the nursing profession. This can emphasize the ability of learning everything you need in order to be successful in your job. Talents and Other Skills It can also be helpful to put your special talents that you can use for the job. You will never know but it can be a deciding factor for employers as well. Sometimes there are employers who seek a well-rounded individual than those who knows the technical side only. Remember that making the resume is only a part of the job hunting process as a nurse. It is an important document so one has to put a lot of effort in preparing it. Even if you have impressive credentials but the format and organization of the resume is not suitable then it defeats the purpose. It is easy to make a generic resume, but what you need is something unique and can call the attention of prospective employers.

Why Some Nurses Look Forward to the Holidays

We all know that nurses are sometimes not part of a family reunion or gathering during holidays. This is mainly due to the nursing shifts that they have to do in order to fulfill their jobs as RNs, BSNs, or LPNs. They have to sacrifice the time away from their family in order to be of help to the hospital patients. That is why when holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's come they console themselves. They think more positively during these times that they are not with their family. Here are some perks the nurses think of when they are serving their shift on a major holiday: Overtime Pay Of course, money is not everything but it can help you be motivated when you work on a holiday. You receive a bigger pay and this can help you save up for the future. You can also use the overtime pay to pay the bills and have extra cash on hand. No Cooking Responsibility Let's face it; sometimes it can really be stressful when you are assigned to cook during the holidays. So many preparations that you need to do. Writing grocery lists, grocery shopping and food preparation can really take its toll. During this time, hospitals provide fantastic meals to the medical staff for them to enjoy. Witness to Special Moments People think of hospitals or health care facilities as dreary places to be with. But with special holidays and occasions you can be the witness to special moments between families and patients. You get to enjoy these light-hearted moments as nurses. Realization of Luck and Happiness When you witness the special moments of the patients with their families, you are also reminded that you are also lucky to have such understanding loved ones who let you do your job to make other people feel better. You realize that you are lucky because you have the ability to help and be of service to many sick people. Holidays are usually events that we spend time with the family. However, as we look at it, nurses sometimes are the people who sacrifice a lot during these special times. They do their duties because they know that their patients need them. Despite this sacrifice, they still think positively about their situation. The resilience of the nurses is being shown here. They make a way to make sure that even though they are not with their families, they spend this special time in a worthwhile cause.