Things I’ve Learned: 90 Days of Nursing

Nurse w lampHard to believe I’ve been gainfully employed as a Registered Nurse for 90 days! Here are a few things I have learned:

Kinda cool: It’s a little thrilling to do some of those things that nursing students aren’t allowed to do for the first time: dispense certain medications, countersign high-risk meds, sign a nursing note with RN at the end of your name.

Happy Feet: Those shoes that got you through 8 hour shifts in nursing school may well be very inadequate for 12 hour shifts in real life. Keep in mind that a nurse very likely puts on 10,000 steps a day, minimum. She (ok, sometimes he) also spends a lot of time standing. Get good shoes. Also, consider upgrading your socks.

Time Keeps On Slippin’: Good time management skills are absolutely critical to doing all the things you need to do over the course of your shift.

The Little Things: There are a lot of nursing skills that require some serious fine motor skills. A nurse learns to do a lot of things one handed, with the other hand on the patient in some way. Oh, and some medications are just ridiculously hard to get out of their individually wrapped containers while wearing exam gloves.

A Spoonful of Sugar: A little old fashioned Dale Carnegie interaction with patients (and even coworkers) goes a long way at work.

On Uniforms: I kind of like wearing a uniform to work. I like being able to look around my facility and know exactly who does what.

That’s My Line!: Many people don’t understand the difference between a nurse and a CNA.

Reality Break

Dear Democrats on the Internet:

Have you lost your everlovin mind?

We just finished an election where the American voters rejected not just one, but two political dynasties. Furthermore, just about everybody except Maddie Albright rejected the notion of “vote for the girl ’cause she’s a girl.” And finally, voters rejected the notion of a “everything is fine nothing is broken” politics-as-usual candidate.

Michelle Obama would be a terrible choice for Democratic nominee in 2020. Not because she’s a woman. Not because she’s black. Not even because certain Republicans have spent the last 8 years criticizing literally everything about her.

Because we don’t pass down the Presidency like it’s some kind of crown.

And furthermore, she’s not interested.

The Hangover 2016

Happier times?
Happier times?

Ok. Everybody recovered from either celebrating or being sad and confused yesterday? Good. Let’s take a collective deep breath or three. It’s time to talk like grown-ups about what happened this election.

Protest signs with swear words are not helpful. Stop it with the popular vote argument unless you were equally outraged in 2000.

I’d like to share some of the more level headed things that were said yesterday about Hillary’s defeat. No, not Trump’s win, but Hillary’s defeat. There were a lot of people who had a  hard time choosing between — as this season of South Park put it — the douche or the turd sandwich. No, you can’t boil this down to “hate won” or “xenophobia and misogyny.” So here I offer the thoughts of Ryan Bort and Juan Cole. Note the theme of an enraged electorate whose standard of living has been in decline.

Hillary was a weak candidate: a “limousine liberal” in a time when Joe Average is not doing well. She was beset by scandals both real and imaginary.

Her slogan was “Stronger Together,” but she ran on “Come now, be reasonable and accept small variations on the status quo.” Bernie Sanders’s ideas? Come now, be reasonable. Recent radio ads purportedly sharing the thoughts of Republicans planning to vote for Clinton actually used the words “She’s reasonable.”

Here’s a good summary: “She was a weak candidate with tremendous baggage and very high unfavorable ratings. She was a status quo candidate with a status quo campaign in a change election.” And yet the decision was made very high up in the DNC that it was “her turn.”

So yeah, it’s time for a shakeup in the Democratic Party.