I’m on vacation this week, so while I’m gone I have dipped into the archives to bring back some of my favorite posts. Today’s offering is one of the many clinical guides offered on FHO, and a relatively popular topic of professional conversation these days: Alternate Light Source Use for Identifying Bruising…
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I’m on vacation this week, so while I’m gone I have dipped into the archives to bring back some of my favorite posts. Today’s offering: Testifying to an Opinion…
I’m on vacation this week, so while I’m away I’ve dipped into the archives for a popular past post. Today’s offering: from the very favorite 10 Things category: Statements I would Prefer Never to Hear Again. Enjoy!
I have had conversations with close friends about some issues around professionalism in forensic nursing, but I had not considered writing about it at any length until I had a frustrated email from an FHO reader who was wondering if I had recognized this problem for myself. Her concern was regarding a colleague’s behavior in multidisciplinary meetings and how it reflected on the rest of the team, and sure, I’ve seen breaches in professionalism at SART and MDT meetings before. But I also have seen them in court, at conferences, in classes I teach—lapses in professionalism have the potential to be pretty ubiquitous. (Of course, it’s not just in nursing—all disciplines have their issues. But I can only write what I know, so that’s the focus here.) What constitutes professionalism, though, is hard to pin down. Yes, there are some things that feel universal to me—try really hard not to don’t drop the F-bomb in professional meetings or on the stand; don’t use text abbreviations in professional emails (also: complete sentences are awesome); clean, unwrinkled clothing and good hygiene are non-negotiable in any professional setting (except on shift—then I’ll settle just for the hygiene part). But many of my views are deeply personal and represent my own particular set of values and ideals. So as a way to start the conversation on a larger scale, I figured I’d bring you a new 10 Things list: Professionalism Fundamentals. Many of you will have additional insight, so I invite you to add to the dialogue in the Comments section, should the spirit move you. And naturally, feel free to disagree in the Comments, as well—this is 100% the world according to Jen, after all.
The National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse is hosting a webinar, Human Trafficking: The Role of the Health Care Provider, May 14th, 12-1:30pm PT (for some reason the registration link says April 23rd, so hopefully they will get that fixed). Free CMEs are available (sadly, no CEUs for nurses). Click through for details:
After a few weeks off, our popular series, Full-Text Fridays is back. This week’s article looks at self-inflicted injuries among children in the US. Click through for all of the details:
I’m thinking quite a bit today about Evidence-Based Practice and figured I’d share a resource. We throw this word around a lot, but I find in talking with many clinicians that there is a fundamental difficulty in describing exactly what that means and how to ensure that your practice is indeed evidence-based. The American Journal of Nursing has a pretty comprehensive series on this subject, Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step. The collection has 12 articles, and 10 are free full-text. There are also 4 CE opportunities attached to the collection (for a fee). Hopefully that will give folks some resources to look more closely at their own practices, if needed.
{Don’t forget: we also have the Understanding Research clinical guide to help with this topic, as well}
Since I am immersed in all things sustainability, I figured I would share an article that is part of the resource library for an upcoming project. Today’s full-text offering is focused on the characteristics of effective clinical leadership in contemporary nursing. Like so many articles I post for this segment, this is a meta-analysis. The results aren’t particularly surprising, but they underscore the need to cultivate certain attributes in our program managers when we consider common threats to sustainability, such as recruitment and retention issues:
First day back in the office, so I’ll be running around madly. But if you have some down time, I highly recommend checking out this NPR interview with former president Jimmy Carter on his call to action against the subjugation of women. I’m listening now, as I gear up for my day. (H/t JPW).
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Here’s Why Collaboration
I’m working on some sustainability stuff this week in the early morning hours before hitting the slopes. In looking for something else entirely (isn’t that what always happens), I came across this brief story that I thought was a brilliant illustration of why collaboration trumps working alone. Enjoy.
OJJDP is hosting an upcoming webinar, Access to Healthcare for Vulnerable Populations. The session will be held March 26th from 2-3:30pm ET. You can register here. Click through for details–it’s a fairly specific focus on this one:
Medscape has an interesting legal column that looks at whether nurses should be paid if they have to be available for work. Since we talk about this type of thing when we discuss sustainability I figured it would be worth a post. As always, access is free, but you need to register first.
In light of last week’s post on my observations from court and the recent activity on a couple of the listservs to which I belong, I thought I would expand a bit on the issue of making changes to your practice. I find that people float a lot of ideas out there and some folks are awfully quick to up and make changes based on what they read without necessarily having much evidence to do so (especially when it’s a bright and shiny new toy or a well-known name attached to a particular idea). But the thing is, when you are trying to provide the best possible care to patients AND you will need to be able to explain and defend the clinical decisions you make with those patients in court from time to time, there needs to be actual evidence to support changes you ultimately make to your practice.
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Preventing Youth Violence
The CDC is offering an online public health grand rounds on February 18th: Preventing Youth Violence. The session will take place from 1-2pm ET. Email questions will be accepted before or during the broadcast.
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Using Data to Fight Crime
Been awhile since I posted a video, and you all know how much I like data:
Sorry for the last minute notice on this, but I just came by it myself. Gary Slutkin of Cure Violence will be the featured speaker on a webinar sponsored by AAP’s Medical Home for Children and Adolescents Exposed to Violence. The session, The Role of the Healthcare Provider in Treating Violence, will be held January 23rd from noon-1pm. The big question is timezone–they don’t specify so if you’re interested, you’ll need to confirm. My hunch is it’s Central, since AAP is located in Chicago. You can register for the session here. No word if it will be archived online.
Happy Friday! This week’s full-text journal article is Sexting and Sexual Behavior in At-Risk Adolescents. Get more information about this week’s article after the jump:
New surveillance report from the CDC now available: Sexually Transmitted Diseases 2012 (PDF). Medscape has a brief article on the contents of the report that merits a read. Worth noting is the recent jump in syphilis (up 11%), along with a 4% increase in gonorrhea. It may be time to rethink testing for at-risk forensic patients depending on what the numbers look like for your area. The figures are broken down by region, state and county to assist with the decision making. The surveillance data also breaks down by gender, race/ethnicity and age. A few stats after the jump:
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Anniversary Giveaway Winner!
Random.org has spoken, and the winner of the books and notebooks is Rebecca, who replied:
I use your articles of note to stay current on the newest research that is out there. I love having it all there together for me instead of having to go out and find it. This has been so helpful!
Rebecca, please contact me with your mailing information so I can get your stuff shipped. And thanks to everyone who left comments–I have taken some notes and am making some additions and changes to the site based on your feedback.
Many of you have expressed that the articles are some of the most useful items on FHO. So in an effort to bring you more, I am pleased to present a new feature: Full-Text Fridays, in which I will highlight one (ok, sometimes more) full-text article(s) from peer-reviewed journals available in the public domain. Enjoy!