Nursing Topics: What I'm Reading, Watching and Listening To

Sometimes I marvel at this modern age. Just think of all of the resources we have available to us to learn more about any topic we can possibly think of. Because I am going into nursing, I am naturally drawn to all forms of media that will steep me in all things medical...until such time as I can participate myself.

This is just a short list of resources I'm using to further my knowledge and interest in the field:

READING:

• A Nurses Story, by Tilda Sharif
• Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life and Everything in Between, by Theresa Brown
• Tending Lives: Nurses on the Medical Front, by Echo Heron
• Notes on Nursing, by Florence Nightingale
• Journal of a Civil War Nurse, by Georgiann Baldino
• Nurse: The True Story of Mary Benjamin, by Peggy Anderson

WATCHING:

• London Hospital, BBC Series 1 & 2
• Nurse Jackie, Showtime
• House

LISTENING:

• The Nursing Show Podcast
• Insights in Nursing Podcast
• Almost a Nurse Podcast
• Travel Nurse Talk Podcast
• Travel Nursing Insider Podcast
• Becoming a Nurse Podcast

SURFING:

• http://allnurses.com/
• http://iamanursingstudent.blogspot.com/
• http://nurseteeny.wordpress.com/
• ...and many more!

At times I need to dial down the media inputs in order to get things done! Truly no point in soaking up all these great resources if I still haven't taken the necessary steps toward getting into a program, but honestly, I need a balance and these research efforts keep me motivated.

Such a TEAS

I'm in the thick of determining which schools to apply to -- since it appears most of the application deadlines are coming up in the next several months. One of the programs that interests me is a combination Diploma / ADN from West Pennsylvania Hospital. I have learned that hospital-based diploma programs were the primary means of training up nurses until colleges took over that role. Students enrolled right at the hospital, who ran their own training programs and issued a diploma at the end. Most of these programs have disappeared, but there are still some remaining, mostly on the east coast.

What appeals to me about West Penn is that they offer this traditional training, which seems to be more clinical focused, and in conjunction with their local community college, students can still receive their Associates Degree along with the Diploma. I like that they have dorms available on site, and that it is a Magnet hospital. I'll be applying to a few diploma programs, as well as my local area schools.

My real challenge is finding that sweet spot between programs that I'd like, that I would qualify to apply for, and that will allow me to get going on my training as fast as possible in order to avoid the dreaded couple-year waits that many wannabe nursing students have been facing. I have been preparing my friends and family that it might be necessary for me to move away in order to do this...since any delays become fiscally nightmarish!

In order to apply to many schools I need to write the TEAS exam. Groan. Having been out of academia for so long...my general knowledge is at this point unknown! What exactly DO I know? Practice tests...here I come!

It's FREE people!

Decided to become a nurse. Check.

Signed up for school. Check.

Applied to volunteer at the hospital...Check.

The time between leaving my job and going to school next month is ideal for volunteering. And with all of the volunteer openings, and budget cuts in health care...one would think that the hospital would be falling over itself to get help that is, in fact, FREE.

Just point me in the right direction, folks! I'll tuck in patients. I'll re-stock the shelves. I'll rock the babies. Sign me up!

So, why is it taking weeks just to get this volunteer gig set up at Big Named Regional Hospital? Don't they want and need my help? (Their website says they do!)

In my former life as a business person, this kind of unresponsiveness was the kiss of death. Which brings up a point that was driven home to me yesterday. A dear friend of mine, and business leader, is dealing with the health care system for a recent condition (fairly serious) which he has developed. He has been dealing with frustration due to unreturned phone inquiries, staff that don't remember who he is, delays in getting appointments and just running down rabbit holes trying to learn about how to take care of himself with this new condition. Very little is happening on the patient education side. I told him what I had learned...you really need to step up to be your own patient advocate, since they aren't going to come to you.

Knowing my former firm, which is known far and wide for hospitality and personal service, he finally exclaimed -- where is THAT kind of service in health care?! I nodded and commiserated with him, since I too have run up against this labyrinth we call health care when I have been a patient.

So now my mission is a little bit clearer. Call me an optimist, but I intend to apply what I have learned about good business, and apply it to my new role as a (future) nurse. I'm reading a lot of biographies about nursing and it's frustrations, and I'm ready to get in the game and do my bit to make things better.

Until they beat it out of me...

:D

Quite a Feeling

Waiting to hear if the biopsy was cancerous was rough. The Monday following my giving a sample, the nurse from the derm's office called a couple of days early and I had two emotions immediately charge my system simultaneously -- thrill that they were calling early and my wait was over, and also utter dread. 

She started out by saying, "I've got some bad news..." -- and my heart skipped several beats before she finished and said, "...we have lost your biopsy sample somehow and we need you to come back to repeat the test."

Can you even believe it? 

Because they were so embarrassed about losing the sample, they got me in the same day and promised to expedite the results. I opted to bring a friend to hold my hand, as I wasn't relishing having a shot in the same spot as where they had sliced me the first time. Glad I did that, 'cause it hurt!

I'll skip to the end. The results were negative and I'm fine. It was hard to be going through an emotional last week at my job and also dealing with this, but I'm thrilled to have it behind me.

It's Probably Nothing

I have one week left at work, and since it is also nearing the end of the year, I am trying to wrap up my visits to various doctors. On Thursday I went for my first visit to a dermatologist. Though I am covered in moles...I haven't ever made it a priority to get to the doc to get them checked out.

Many years ago my brother and I took my (then) little boy to see Victoria, BC. While there I treated myself to a massage. The therapist remarked that I had a cute little mole on the bottom of my foot, by my pinkie toe. Of course, I never knew it was there. And since I have so many moles, I forgot about it. Several years later, my PA saw it during a routine physical and wanted it checked out immediately. She said we don't get moles where there is no pigment in our skin, so anything on the soles and palms need to be checked.

Sheepish admission now...I didn't go.

Last year, a dear friend of mine was dying of breast cancer. And another dear friend lost her sight in one eye to cancer. Both friends made me promise to get in to the derm and get that mole checked out.

The dermatologist was a really nice, easy going gal. She began with an overall skin assessment. I was surprised at how quickly she looked me over. I had been figuring on being in there all afternoon, considering how moley I am. Throughout the initial exam she was keeping up a patter of easy conversation while quickly and efficiently working with the nurse to catalog what she was seeing.

Until we came to my "cute little mole" on my foot. She was experienced enough not to gasp and stare...however there was an immediate reaction and a very subtle shift in her communication with me. She told me that mole was now 7 mm, dark, and irregular and needed an immediate biopsy. Then she rushed to say that it was probably nothing, and just a precaution.

I pressed to ask what if...? Then she frankly said that cancers on the sole of the foot are very aggressive, tend to go straight to the brain, and that the odds are pretty poor. Apparently it is also how Bob Marley died. Oh great. I noticed she was avoiding making eye contact with me.

My anxiety shot through the roof, and I became one of those nervous patients who asks a million questions, fills the room with chatter, and just generally babbles away while they prepped me to go into the surgery to have 3 moles removed for biopsy. I will have the results in 7 days.

The waiting is not going to be easy.

I am going to take that doc's word that it really is probably nothing. Maybe this is yet another chance for me to have some experience in what the patient goes through that will round out my overall ability to care for people as a nurse some day.

Unwinding the maze of Prereqs

If only becoming a nurse was as straightforward as when I went to design school. Back then, I identified a school that fit with my life (had a night program so I could raise my son during the day) and I signed up for classes. Done and done.

Not so with nursing it seems.

Turns out, although there is a huge shortage of nurses, there is a massive bottleneck of nurse-educators, which makes getting into a program super competitive. So my ideal first choice of staying close to home, friends and church while going to school may not be possible. Yesterday I spent most of Thanksgiving putting together a massive spreadsheet to do a competitive analysis of all of the schools in my region, and some out of state options, just to get a handle on some possible pathways into nursing.

And then there are more and more questions that pile on. Should I get the quickie 2 year ADN-RN or, since I'm in school anyway...go straight for the 4 year BSN? I have a total of 5.5 years of college so far, so that seems reasonable. But if the limited number of public BSN programs are so hard to get into and I need to wait a year to get into a program (as many wannabe students do) --should I then think about the lesser LPN option, just to get to work faster? And at some point, I may get impatient and decide to cough up and head to a private school if it means I could finish faster.

The impatient me is just chomping at the bit to get on with it already.

Regardless -- any pathway I head down will still require the same basic batch of prereqs and I'll be chipping away at them starting next month. At the same time I'll be hooking up some volunteer hours at a local hospital for some work experience that will look good on the applications. I'm really looking forward to that, since I'll get a semi-immersion look at the field.

Investing in technology

It's the day before Thanksgiving and I have taken the day off work to drive to see family in Portland. While here, it's a great opportunity to purchase my new laptop. This laptop will see me through school, and its purchase here helps, as Oregon is a sales-tax-free state. Combine that with my student discount and it's worth doing here. (I'm 2 weeks left at my job and anticipating impending poverty with dread. Ouch!)

I have selected the new Macbook Air. This featherweight computer is ideal for me, specifically because I haul myself and whatever gear I have up 220 stairs every morning to get from my cabin on the beach to the car. I envision the laptop, plus all the nursing school textbooks as being quite a payload, and am glad this light computer is available for a beacher like me.

I'm rewinding to the 90's when I was in Art school in my twenties. I bought the very first mac laptop, the black and sleek Executive powerbook. She was a thing of beauty, and as a testimony to the superlative design skills of the Apple group -- it still looks great today! Looking at the slim lines of this new machine, I'm thinking about all the things we're about to go through together with a mixture of excitement and total dread.

Gulp!

Nah...Bring It ON!

I Hate Being in the Vault

I'm an all-out-there kind of girl. Transparency is pretty much how I live my life. So having made this monumental decision, and not having made it known yet at work...is killing me.

I love my firm and the people in it. For 10 years it has been my home and my family, and that isn't over-stating it. Our firm is known for it's warm environment. And if I hadn't decided to switch careers in mid-life...I doubt I would ever leave.

I'll be sharing this blog with my friends at work once I break the news...so, work family -- this post is pretty much an open letter to all of you!

Why am I leaving?

• I'm at that pivotal point between the time my son gets married and starts a family, and the time when my parents get older and start needing me around. Nobody ever knows how long that period may be, but if I were going to make changes...now is the time.

• I have learned that I'm no longer interested in the business world -- I have 25 years to go before retirement, and staying engaged in business means: days, weeks and years filled with meetings, management, and key performance indicators! I have decided I don't want to fill my time that way.

• I'm an adventure junkie. Change excites me. Variety feeds me. Serving people is where I find my joy. As I research the nursing industry -- it seems tailor-made for me. There are so many paths nursing can take me down, that if I crave change in the future, I can explore them. The path I've been on is rather linear and defined. It is really too soon to say what area will interest me, but I am rather intrigued by travel nursing. I will be gearing my preparations after graduation toward becoming a travel nurse. These nurses travel the country taking short 3 month assignments anywhere they like, with an option to extend. I love the idea of moving around for a season and exploring areas that strike my fancy. I'll write more later on the other things I have learned about this path.

• I'm a single woman. This recession is pissing me off! But because I don't have the income of a spouse to fall back on, I am particularly vulnerable if the promised Hope and Change doesn't come, and things in this economy continue to decline. Nursing is one of those recession-proof jobs and will enable me to expand my reach far and wide if I need to. As an artist, part of me always chafed that in the "lifeboat of life" -- I'd likely be thrown overboard or eaten by the doctors, teachers and engineers who would be needed during rough times!

• I have something to contribute! Unfortunately, I have been a consumer of healthcare more times than I would have ever thought. I have been in so much pain at times, that I know what it is like to actually not care if I lived or died in those dark moments. I have spoken the words "just let me die." and given up. I have gone through painful rehabilitation requiring daily PT and sustained narcotic meds to get me through. I have faced personal demons, wandering quite close to depression during the worst part of my recovery -- and come out the other side. Combine my experiences on the patient side of things, my life experience as a leader and business person, and my passion to comfort and aid those who are suffering, and I am betting my future on the fact that I will make a great nurse.

Big Gulp

Most people might think I'm crazy -- just 40, at the pinnacle of my career as Director of Marketing and Graphic Design at one of the state's top firms, son about to graduate and head off to college...and what do I do? That's right. I'm going off to college too!

After 15 years of being in the design profession -- first noodling around with it at my former job in my 20's. Then art school, and working as a designer while attending night school. A stint in Seattle. Then freelancing. And finally, my longest run at my current firm -- and now it's ten years later.

Man, time does fly by.