impactednurse.com is coming up for its yearly renewal again.
This site remains very much a work of love for me, that is dedicated to nurses and doctors of our health system, but in particular to the exceptional bunch of colleagues that I am chest-explodingly proud and honored to work with every day.
In the vast humungitude of [...]

Do we maintain an adequate level of individual privacy and confidentiality for our patients during their stay in hospital?
A study of 364 patients attending an urban, university based emergency department (ED) reported in the Emergency Medicine Journal has found that privacy is a strong predictor of overall patient satisfaction with their treatment.
From ancient times, respect [...]

Each of our eyes sees the world from a different side, but it is by accepting both views as real, we see the true depth of things.
In his famous book ‘The Order of Things, Micheal Foucault describes a passage from “a certain Chinese encyclopedia” that, he claims1, divides all the animals belonging to the [...]

don’t just do it……. be it!
Not sure what exactly it is that makes a nurse?

Want to know how to survive burnout?
Want to know how to catheterize a male? How about a female?
Need to extract a penis from the talons of a zipper?
Worried that your patients lips may explode?
Never heard of the Rectal Trumpet?
Air bubbles in [...]

A young, fit looking 22 year old man presents to the Triage desk at 2am on a Saturday morning. He is restless and anxious and complaining of some vague chest discomfort. The pain started whilst he was out at a local nightclub with friends.
Despite the fact he is worried, he doesn’t look too bad and [...]

Hospital: a place that employs one doctor to work a bazillion-hour week, one nurse to care for 4 very sick people, and three maintenance men to put up 1 small shelf.
There has been quite a bit of discussion (particularly in the US) lately surrounding nurse patient ratios. The question is often put to examine what [...]

“We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead.”
::William Arthur Ward::
So tell me, where do you look for leadership in our profession?
Who do you turn to when looking [...]

Of all the areas of the hospital, I would propose that the emergency department is on the lower end of the all important:  ‘gift to nurse ratio’ (GNR) spectrum1.
Anecdotally, areas such as maternity, paediatrics, neonatal intensive-care and even oncology score a much higher GNR rating.
That’s not to say we don’t get [...]

We see our patients in pain.
But do we feel it?
And should we feel it?
In a recent study, Jean Decety and colleagues examined just this question.
I feel your pain.
Current research in cognitive neuroscience has demonstrated that observing ( or even imagining) another persons pain results in activation of the observers own pain response areas of the [...]

Very interesting study reported in the BMJ on reactions of people to having immediate contact with a deceased relative following a traumatic death.
The authors interviewed a total of 80 people from different social and ethnic backgrounds who had experienced a bereavement from suicide or some other form of traumatic death.
Motivations, expectations, and reactions are linked [...]