It’s easy to believe our nursing world exists only within our workplaces. Each speciality has their own dialect, cultures and traditions. Our colleagues become our community, and venturing to another ward seems like going to a foreign land. However, as you travel from ward to ward, or even country to country, you realise, nursing has […]
If you’re reading this post, chances are you already know what handover is, so I’m not going to bore you with a long-winded definition. Instead, let’s just say it is the passing of information relevant to the care of a patient from one health professional to another. Feel free to add your own academic definition […]
Tell me if this sounds familiar. I was transferring an older male patient, let’s call him Bill, to another ward. I had cared for Bill over the past two days and he had always been very nice with no hint of inappropriate behaviour. As I was helping him pack up his belongings, Bill said “if […]
Recently, I cared for a lady with complete heart block. Nothing too unusual, a fairly regular occurrence in a cardiology ward. The difference, she was 40 weeks pregnant, two days past her due date. I’m not ashamed to admit, I was paranoid about the baby making an entrance. In the event of an emergency, I […]
When nurses discuss ‘practice standards’ the focus is often clinical practice. However, these standards also refer to the NMBA Code of Professional Conduct for Nurses in Australia. These codes outline the “minimum standards for practice a professional person is expected to uphold both within and outside of professional domains in order to ensure the ‘good […]
