What should we call mursing VOL 8

The moment when you realize how much clinical paperwork you have due each semester

Top 10 most applicable hip-hop songs to nursing school (PT 1)

Going through nursing you experience a pretty wide range of emotions, from pretty crazy high's (like the day you got accepted) to soul crushing lows (the first time you really screwed up in clinical). I would do a top 10 "Songs that apply to Nursing School" but I would run the risk of A. Opening the door for Bieber songs to be eligible. and B.  Not being able to show what a hip-hop hipster I am. 

Besides who does not naturally correlate nursing with hip-hop? I know as soon as I think about nursing the first thing that pops into my mind is dudes rapping about: money, women, and drugs. There is no more appropriate genre for a top ten list.

Each song will have: a most appropriate moment in nursing school, most fitting line, link to the song (who doesn't have 30-45 minutes to spare listening to obscure hip-hop songs on an obscure blog?), and GIF that captures the moment and song perfectly.

Remember this is nursing school related so ultimately this is one big time waster.

BONUS. Marvin's Room- Drake

The song (with an altered audio YAY COPYRIGHT LAWS!!!) 

The most applicable line: "I see all of my friends here
Guess she (or he) don't have the time to kick it no more"

The nursing school application: This song is our token break up song. Nursing school is actually the second leading cause of break-ups in the united states behind marriage. I remember when we started Nursing School one of our teachers Teacher-X was like "Yeah you probably won't make it through school with the same boyfriend/girlfriend you are with now" we all chuckled and went on our merry way. Little did we know nursing school would start stalking couples like characters in a horror film RIP to all the happy relationships done in by nursing school

#10 Missing You- P.diddy/Diddy/ Sean Combs/ Puff Daddy/ WHATEVER HIS NAME IS NOW

Most applicable line:" This goes out to everyone who has lost someone"

Application to Nursing School: This goes out to all the victims of that one class in your program that is notorious for weeding out the pretenders. In my case it was pathophysiology. Our patho class was during the first semester taught by a teacher who was famous for her impossible tests and partying abilities. The overwhelming sense of constant doom that goes along with being a first semester nursing student combined with the test questions meant that a large % of our class was close to the pass/fail mark. Seriously this would be an example question from a patho test:

B2-adrenergic agonist's do which of the following: 

A. Purple
B. The declaration of independence 
C. B/C=C^2 
D. A &B
E. A & C
F. B & C
G. ALL
H. NONE

Naturally we would go ask our teacher questions like "Hey whats the English version of this question???" she would look at us and say something really helpful like "You should have studied harder" or "Mmmmmmmm"

I'm not bitter though.

Related GIF: 



#9 I don't wanna care right now- Lupe Fiasco

Applicable line: "No, I don't, I really don't wanna care right now"

Application to nursing: This is pretty simple, this is exactly how I felt after taking tests and how I often felt when friends would complain to me about how busy or hard their school was. Nursing school makes you an expert at two things: 1. bed baths and 2. The "Oh yeah thats nice" smile and nod when a non-nursing major talks about their really tough world lit class

NURSING ELITISM FTW

Related GIF: 



#8 Till I collapse- Eminem

Most applicable line: "Cause sometimes you just feel tired. You feel weak and when you feel weak you feel like you just wanna give up. But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and just pull that ISH out of you and get that motivation to not give up"

Application to nursing school: this is for every moment that you are so unbelievably tired that you feel like you can sleep for weeks and weeks, but unfortunately you have a full clinical day followed by yet another all nighter studying for a test that will decide your future. So basically this is for every moment. 

Related GIF: 


#7 Power- Kanye West

Most Applicable Line: NO ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT POWER

Application to nursing school: Teachers with too much power, doctor's ( ALSO APPLIES TO FEMALES THIS IS A SEMI-POLITICALLY CORRECT BLOG LETS ALL CALM DOWN) people in charge of the crash cart, charge nurses, and my personal favorite anonymous nursing student bloggers

Related GIF: 



#6 Awesome- XV

Most applicable line: "Cause I feel so awesome, how ya feel awesome? Well I guess that's awesome"

Ok so XV may not be the best lyricist, I mean rhymed "awesome" with "awesome" with "awesome" but....

Application to nursing school:....who hasn't felt this way at least a few times in nursing school. PERSONAL STORY ALERT. For me this song best applies to getting accepted. Our school looks at: grades, interview score, and experience (shadowing or work). I had good grades in undergrad but I was unbelievably nervous going into the interview. I really don't like interviews you have to brag on yourself and I AM EXTREMELY INCREDIBLY HUMBLE, i could do an entire blog about my humility. Seriously, the list of applicable nicknames goes: Honest Abe, Baracka flocka flame Obama, The Black Mamba (Kobe), and Captain humility (me). Actually, the real reason I don't like interviews is the questions, anytime someone will be asking you questions like: "So captain humility if your nursing essence had a spirit animal what would that animal be and why?!" i'm out. For the record my nursing spirit animal is in fact a Liger. Anyway I was sure I had bombed the interview, to make it worse all of my friends that applied were getting accepted and I got no letter. After about two weeks I was sure I had botched my interview badly enough that I wouldn't be getting in, I was already looking into changing my name and applying to a school that offered a twitter major #brightfuture. So finally my mom calls (she had been out of town for about a week and a half) and in between the sobbing I make out the words "letter" "proud" and "school". After putting on my critical thinking cap and going Sherlock Holmes I deducted that I made it in, I put on this song and called it a day

Related GIF: 



This turned out much longer than I expected so part two will go up this weekend. Be safe and save lives 

My top five least favorite mursing clinical skills SO FAR

Let me preface this by saying that like most mursing students, clinical rotations are the highlight of school for me and there no other moment that makes you feel more legit than the first time you put an IV in a patient and you walk around the rest of the day like 

However, there are some things in clinical I could do without. While I could talk about stuff that is universal to everyone (like all of the completely pointless paperwork) I decided to focus on the skills that I have found to be the most dreadful. I'm going to follow this up eventually with a top five favorite skills but, everyone knows in mursing school NEGATIVITY COMES FIRST

#5.  Blood Glucose testing

So this might cause some confusion. You might be saying to yourself "Blood glucose testing? What sort of crappy murse are you that's EASY". 

1. You are talking to yourself and probably crazy- blame nursing school and get some counselling. 

2. You need to understand my background with blood glucose testing

One of my first days of clinical I was doing blood glucose testing. Having never done it before and being extremely nervous because I still had no idea what I was doing in the hospital I managed to stick the patient 5 times before I could get the blood glucose monitor to read. I literally used three different machines and entered and exited the room about 4 times over thirty minutes before I could manage to get a good reading. To this day I have a deep innate fear of having to test someones blood glucose. In my mind I can just see myself regressing back to that fateful day and having a complete emotional breakdown, in this hypothetical scenario my inadequacy shakes me so bad I go on too fail the semester, drop out of mursing school and work at a Taco Bell as a "Nacho Specialist" for the rest of my life. If I fail mursing school, don't say I didn't warn you in advance.

#4. Bed Bath's

I understand the need for bed bath's but i'm not sure I will ever get to the day where I am like "DIRTY PATIENT?!?! YES, SCORE!! LET ME GO GET MY WASHCLOTH OF PURITY READY. CAN'T WAIT TO SCRUB HIM/HER DOWN!" and as a murse you tend to get called in a lot more for bed baths. A floor nurse will be like I need to bath a patient who wants to help and everyone kinda just stares at you like 

#3.  Inserting a rectal tube

I actually haven't done this one yet. I tend to evaporate when it looks like someone will be called on to insert a rectal tube, I quickly begin asking around if any nurse's need a blood glucose done (knowing this will take me a good 15 minutes) and BOOM, rectal tube averted. I can only imagine though, rectal tubes combine two things I am not too big on: body orifices, and poop.

#2. STD Testing

If you haven't done this yet you are in for a treat! Nothing makes your day like a good old G&C swab

#1. Inserting Catheter's

I mean if you honestly enjoy cath'ing someone bless you, also please work with me and you can do all of mine for me. But, besides the obvious reasons for not liking this: popping the personal space bubble big time, #awkward, nerve racking when you are being watched by like six people. I also hate this because it's sterile. Sterile procedures are pretty tough for me. Once I get past step one everything is fine but let's talk about the gloves. I have big hands and those hands get sweaty when i'm nervous (like say when i'm trying to put on sterile gloves). Undoubtedly whoever packages the catheter's expects the nurses to be 5-6 years old because those gloves are tiny. This inevitably leads to a scene where I hop around the room struggling to put the gloves on kinda like the guy in this GIF

While the patient looks on like this-

and tries to figure out if I am being attacked by invisible wasps or if I enjoy spontaneous dancing. It almost always ends with me ripping the gloves, asking for a larger pair and then crying myself to sleep at night while I have nightmares about blood glucose testing.

What's your least favorite clinical skill?

What should we call mursing VOL 7

The day I saw my first rectal tube

The most interesting Murse in the world

He is the most interesting murse in the world

Feel free to create your own and share it: http://memegenerator.net/Most-Interesting-Murse-In-The-World?browsingOrder=New&browsingTimeSpan=Today

What should we call mursing VOL 6

When a clinical instructor asks you what some obnoxiously-long-named rare drug does and you have no idea

AIDET, the essential mursing tool

People sometimes ask me, Murse among men you alpha murse how do you manage to provide such fabulous mursing care?

Well its actually easy. There are a few simple rules to follow in any situation. Just follow these rules and you will always be able to provide top notch mursing care. I have broken this down in simple AIDET form for you


A- Attitude. Patients will have it, so should you. Sometimes the situation may get out of hand so you always need to carry your Axe 
I- Initiative. Let others take it, taking initiative never ends well. Ever. Also intelligence, all murses have it and exert it in any situation 
D- Dominate. Dominate every patient and situation ALWAYS
E- Excellence. You may not have it but always fake it
T- Tabasco. Great enema, great for the eyes, great mursing tool. And Twist the nipples, the best painful stimuli

What should we call mursing VOL 5

When a fellow murse does something awesome in clinical

The essence of mursing

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.

Wetness is also the essence of snow and beauty is the essence of mursing.

There, I made it mursing related.

AUSOM/AUSON ski trip Jan 3-7, 2013...get  ready

#LEADERSHIPprobz

What should we call mursing VOL 4

When you click submit on your HESI

What should we call mursing VOL 3

The day clinical rotations come out and you have a mursing bro in your group

The Joker, ideal murse or disgrace to murses everywhere?

Just about any murse you talk to has seen "Batman: The Dark Knight" one of the most memorable things about the movie was Heath Ledger's portrayal of the joker. But, one of the things that is often overlooked when reminiscing about the movie is that the joker had a very important couple of scenes where he impersonated a murse. Lot's of people have artistically broken down Heath Ledger's performance, but I don't think a single person has looked at how well the character of the Joker did in pretending to be a murse.  So I will be grading the following clip in three categories giving the joker a score of 1-10 in each category and averaging those scores together to see if the joker could cut it as a murse, remember 73% is a pass!!!

The categories are as follows:

Murse-ness: Murse-ness can be hard to define. But, it is essentially the unique qualities that set the murse apart of the common nurse. For example, a patient complains of severe neck pain. A nurse might gather more info or give a PRN med, but a murse (realizing the severity of the situation) quickly hits the emergency call light and starts compressions while singing "Another one bites the dust" at the top of his lungs. For further reference on murse-ness see the previous blog post "The Mursing Code"

Classic Nurse Skills: Just about everyone knows what these are how will did he do things like follow contact precautions and communicate therapeutically *yawn*

Faking it till you make it: Ahhhhhhhh a classic category for any good mursing student, how will did the joker pull off pretending to be a nurse and convincing those around him he knew what he was doing


Here's the scene, lets get to analyzing

Ok so we have four different sections to break down: cop scene, in the patients room, leaving the hospital, and outside the hospital

Cop Scene: Alright so pretty quick scene gonna be a quick breakdown. Now the Joker is obviously going over patients records is this scene and everyone knows that the #1 rule to mursing is ALWAYS FOLLOW HIPPA. Therefore, the fact that the cop burst into the room un-announced means he kinda had 2 to the chest coming to him. Also, the joker did have a mask on but no gloves. I think those two things cancel each other out skill wise (we don't know if there was a reason for the mask maybe he had a cold, maybe there was some mrsa going around WHO KNOWS). Finally, the cop A. thinks the joker is a NURSE B. Refers to him as a her. Great faking it if you ask me. Lets move on.

Patients Bedside: Ok there is LOTS going on in this scene. So right off the bat there are a few things going on.

• we see that the PT has wrist restraints which raises severeal questions. Is there a standing order? Is the patient a danger to himself? etc etc
• The joker again has on a mask but no gloves, again hard to judge without knowing the situation
• The hair is definitely a little long for the professional environment and shaking it out bedside is not hygienic
• Pretty good example of therapeutic communication here. Definitely on the patients level and very real. Absolutely teaching the patient to captain his own ship by giving him a gun
• Good empathy as far as communicating sorrow for the patients loss
• Taking the wrist restraint off is poor nursing judgement gonna get deducted for that one
• One of my favorite things about this exchange is that the joker is really letting the patient decide his direction of care. Patient centered care is crucial and he NAILS IT
• Not much in the way of faking it till he makes it, the patient realized he wasn't a murse pretty quick :(

In the hallway: 

• Good hand hygiene
• Blowing up the hallway seems extreme at first, but we dont know there could have been a serious SARS outbreak and the joker might have been just trying to stop the spread. Tough to judge

Outside the hospital:

• Again blowing up the hospital is definitely a boss move but its tough to jusdge the nursing rationale behind the idea
• The TV people seem to think he is a murse which is a plus

SO LETS GRADE THIS

Murse-ness: Starting score= 5

• +3 for protecting HIPPA by any means neccessary 
• +1 for making the patient the captain of his own ship and giving him a gun
• +1 for eliminating a potential SARS outbreak (remember safety first)
• +2 for destroying the hospital (again SAFETY FIRST)
• No deductions leaving a final score of 12/10. Absolutely a great role model for aspiring murses A+ job a true murse among men

Classical Nursing Skills: Starting score= 5

• +1 protecting hippa
• +1 face mask
• -1 No gloves
• +1 therapeutic communication
• +1 Empathy
• -3 No gloves coming into contact with patient
• -1 took mask off
• -1 Hair hygiene
• +1 patient centered care
• +1 hand hygiene when leaving the room
• -1 didn't sound fire alarm or use RACE protocol with fire
• Final score 4/10 FAILING. Definitely needs to review contact precautions that really knocked down what could have been an excellent score

The score so far is 16/20 he's passing but it all comes down to if he can fake it till he makes it (just like mursing school)

Faking it skillz: Starting score= 5

• Fooled the cop into thinking he was a murse and a woman +2
• Didnt fool the patient -1
• Fooled the bystanders +1
• DIDNT FOOL ME -1
• -1 white coar, classic noob murse give away
• Final score 5/10. A good actor, but not a great one. Definitely could tell he was still a murse in training

After a great start he comes back to earth with a 21/30 or a 70%. Time for some remediation

What should we call mursing VOL 2

When another student asks me how they should study for their community mursing test

Mursing Leadership: A Reflection

Often I ask myself: "Am I the sort of leader I want to be?" in these moments of doubt I look to my idol (Darth Vader) and ask myself "If the lord of the sith was in my position what would he do?" (also known as WWDVD). I reflect and act accordingly. This tactic has never failed me and to this day people find me not only an inspirational leader, but an effective motivator

When in doubt follow this example

What should we call mursing VOL 1

My first day of obstetrics rotations

Mursing Courses VS Auburn's 2012 schedule

The most wonderful time of the year is right around the corner thats right CLINICALS!!!!!!

But seriously kickoff is Saturday and to commemorate this glorious event i'm gonna compare the courses at my mursing school to the 2012 Auburn Tigers (NC) schedule!

VS #14 Clemson= Pharmacology

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/campusrivalry/post/2012/05/reports-clemsons-sammy-watkins-arrested-for-unknown-reason/1

'Nuff said

W 27-24

@ Mississippi State= Leadership

MSU is one of those teams that everyone is constantly trying to tell you "NO THEY WILL BE REALLY GOOD THIS YEAR". But in the end you can just coast and be fine, sure there may be a few bumps along the way (uhhhhhhhh group paper anyone?) but the outcome was never really in doubt

W 38-20

VS Louisiana Monroe=EBP

Looked at the schedule and said to myself "Space filler", seems about right for EBP

W 56-14

VS #3 LSU= Pathophysiology

Huge early season test that could either: set the stage for a great run or completely derail the season just like patho. Les miles is kinda crazy, our pathophysiology teacher is kinda crazy and she also might have partaken of some grass back in the day

L 35-13

BUT NEXT SEASON WE GET TO DROP ALL OUR OTHER GAMES AND PREPARE FOR LSU ALL SEASON AND WE SQUEAK OUT A 21-20 WIN!!!!!!!!!!

VS #10 Arkansas= Med Surg

Always sneakily tough. The Arkansas games remind me of med-surg tests. No matter how much I studied for those tests my results always were extremely similar. It seems like no matter how good Auburn is supposed to be this is a tough game

W 24-23

@ Ole Miss= Evidence Based Skills

Watching Ole Miss play is almost as excruciating as having to put in a catheter for the first time. Both give me nightmares.

W 31-0

@ Vandy=theoretical concepts of nursing

When I think of vandy I think of really smart arty people saying abstract smart things that confuse me. Theoretical concepts of nursing consisted of a woman with red hair telling me things like "WELL THEN THE PLACENTA IS IN THE DRIVE THROUGH WINDOW" and "THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS WHO WILL CAPTAIN THE SHIP OF EBP IN YOUR ARTICLE" I didn't understand a thing but survived

W 38-33

VS Texas A&M= Preceptorship

Really have no idea what to expect with TA&M since its our first match-up. Just like no one has any idea what to expect with preceptoring.

Also both will probably include lots of yelling

I found these guys really funny for some reason

Anyway W 28-21


VS NMS=  Leadership round 2

Most people that attend this game while be completely zoned out in the first quarter, exactly how imagine that class will go

W 55-17

VS #6 Georgia= OB

Both Georgia and OB make me wanna vom. I spent most of OB trying to avoid seeing things I wouldn't be able to forgot, which is exactly what I do when UGA fans are around

L 27-13

VS Alabama A&M= Community

Completely pointless game.

W 10493043-0

@ #2 Alabama =Critical Care

Lets see both are lead by a controversial figure that has inspired rumblings of  "evil" both are at the end of long schedules and in both cases you will be seeing lots of red

L 31-18

The essence of nurturing mursehood

The Murse Creed

The Murse Creed

Recognizing that I volunteered as a Murse, fully knowing the hazards of my chosen profession, I will always endeavor to uphold the prestige, honor, and high esprit de corps of the Murses.

Acknowledging the fact that a Murse is a more elite health care provider who arrives at the cutting edge of the hospital by land, sea, or air, I accept the fact that as a Murse my country expects me to move further, faster and nurse harder than any other health care professional.

Never shall I fail my comrades (fellow Murses). I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight and I will shoulder more than my share of the task whatever it may be, one-hundred-percent and then some.

Gallantly will I show the world that I am a specially selected and well-trained health professional. My courtesy to superior Murses, neatness of dress and care of equipment shall set the example for others to follow.

Energetically will I meet the enemies of my hospital. I shall defeat them on the (sterile) field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might. Surrender is not a Murse word. I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the (unwashed) hands of the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country.

Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to heal on to the Murse objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor.

Murses Lead The Way!!!