A quick guide for nurses to help avoid hemolysis and clotting when drawing blood samples.
Tag: healthcare
So You Want to be a CEN?
Wait…what is a CEN? CEN stands for “Certified Emergency Nurse” and is a certification obtained from the Board of Certification for Emergency Nurses (BCEN) signifying mastery in the field of emergency nursing. The BCEN website states, “The CEN exam is for nurses in the emergency department setting who want to demonstrate their expertise, knowledge and …
Fill Your Prescriptions Without Draining the Bank
No matter your age, gender, Twilight team [Go Team Jacob] or overall health status, we will ALL require a medication prescription at some point in our lives. These medications can be CRAZY expensive! As a travel nurse, I sometimes temporarily lose my health insurance throughout the year when I take more than 24 days off …
PD in the ED: Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come for [Patient Information]?
As an Emergency Department RN, I have worked closely with law enforcement throughout my career in a variety of circumstances and know firsthand the importance of maintaining a strong working relationship between hospital and police staff. I have worked in huge ED’s where the police department is always present serving as security for the hospital …
“Tell Me Baby”: Advice for Brand-New Nurses
As the temperatures start to cool off and the kiddos all go back to school, the season for freshly graduated nurses starting out their careers has also commenced. You guys have worked WICKED HARD for YEARS at this point and you deserve a huge congrats!! You should be so proud of yourselves and know that …
Nothing Shocks Me Anymore: Stories from the ER
It’s been 7 years since I graduated nursing school and started on this journey of being an Emergency/Trauma RN and, let me tell you, it hasn’t come with a shortage of insane stories. Over 5 of those years working as an RN have been in the ER which has been almost exclusively in level 1 …
Empower Yourself: Negotiating in the Workplace
Women are incredible. We are strong, resilient, considerate, loving, and usually the glue of our families who hold everything together. Women posses so many positive qualities and are a huge part of today’s workforce, however, we continue to be paid less than a man for the same work and are often passed over for promotions. …
Hot Hot Heat: A Guide to Treating Pediatric Fevers Effectively
So…what is a fever? As everyone already knows, a fever is an elevation in body temperature often due to an infection. Everyone also knows [for the most part] that a “normal” body temperature is considered to be 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. What most people do not realize is that although a temperature may be increased slightly, …
Triage, Trauma and Tattoos
“How can you be afraid of shots?? You have tattoos!” -People who don’t have tattoos As your resident tatted up nurse, it is pretty obvious that I love body ink. Clearly, I’m not alone. According to several sources floating around, anywhere from 20-40% of Americans are rocking tattoos today. With the stigma of tattoos disappearing …
What is a Compact State?
Check out the 2020 updates on another post: https://thewanderingnurseblog.com/2020-compact-state-update/ (Updated 7/21/2019) Compact states are an EXTREMELY helpful bit of legislation for travel nurses that makes working in certain states very convenient and easy! Unfortunately for people like me [yay, Illinois], not all states are involved in this advantageous agreement. If you live in a non-compact …