There is quite a lot of debate at the moment over the efficacy of psychological debriefing immediately following a critical incident or traumatic event.

Its a question you hear a lot in the emergency department: does using an alcohol wipe to clean the skin prior to taking a blood alcohol specimen affect the reading?

One of the more serious mistakes we can make as nurses, is to incorrectly identify a blood specimen we are sending off to pathology.

The NSW nurses association (NSWNA) is currently escalating its industrial actions in an attempt to secure safer nurse staffing ratios and to bring it into alignment with similar existing ratios in place in Victorian hospitals.

“Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals and they answer is: ‘Because animals are like us.’
“Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: ‘Because the animals are not like us.’
“Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.”
:: Prof. Charles R. Magel ::

Nursing has always suffered from a bit of an inferiority complex.
 

Following a totally chance meeting in the staff cafeteria with Alison, a professional music therapist, I asked her if she might be interested experimenting with some music therapy in our emergency department waiting room.