by Mother Nurse Love | May 14, 2021 | Featured Content
A mastectomy can be extremely challenging and painful. With the harsh reality of the situation, anyone navigating through this or aiding in someone’s recovery should educate themselves on the best healing protocols. Start learning here by reading our best care tips for post mastectomy recovery.
Get Plenty of Rest
Many people struggle with actually sitting still and relaxing. If this is you, you really need to force yourself to relax. It’s important because getting enough rest and relaxation will help aid your body through its healing process. Pushing yourself past your limit and exhausting your body during its healing time will only be a disadvantage to your recovery. Don’t let this be the case!
Buy the Right Bra
The post-surgical compression bra that you pick out will make or break your recovery. Research to find the most comfortable, best fitting, and most convenient option for you. You shouldn’t have to feel even more uncomfortable because of the bra you’re wearing. It should support you and feel as if it is helping your healing process. Your body will be grateful when you pick one that’s right for you!
Follow All Directions
The doctor will give you instructions on relaxing, choosing the right bra, medicine, cleaning the drain, and more. Make sure that you follow these directions because they are going to be what help you heal properly and efficiently. Don’t overlook or ignore any steps because you think they don’t matter. It will only make your recovery even longer and more painful—nobody wants that.
A mastectomy can be mentally and physically draining. It’s really hard on a person’s body; the process can be a long one. However, it’s how you go about that process that truly can make a difference. Follow these best care tips for post mastectomy recovery to help you have the best healing and recovery possible!
by Mother Nurse Love | May 12, 2021 | Featured Content
Nurses might be the medical field equivalent of superheroes, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune to mistakes. Nursing is a difficult profession. You have to juggle multiple duties at any given moment and keep track of a wide range of elements. Humans are fallible and the occasional mistake is inevitable. Here are some mistakes to avoid as a new nurse, so you can start your career on the right foot.
Wrong Medication (or Wrong Dose)
Nurses have to maintain their patients’ medical profiles, read through complicated instructions, prepare the right medicine, and administer it correctly. This is crucial to the health and safety of your patient. The wrong medication or dosage can lead to disastrous consequences. Usually, this results from reading prescriptions incorrectly. Doctors are notorious for their illegible handwriting, and it doesn’t help that many medications possess similar names or confusing abbreviations. The best way to avoid medication errors is to familiarize yourself with these names, and when in doubt, ask for clarification.
Keeping Things Clean
We often associate the word “hospital” with images of white, sterile-looking buildings. But hospitals aren’t naturally spotless. A lot of care and effort goes into keeping these environments clean. Forgetting to sterilize your equipment between each use is another mistake to avoid as a new nurse. Most nurses use equipment such as stethoscopes, otoscopes, and thermometers. To mitigate the risk of infection, you must disinfect these pieces of equipment between patients. However, many new nurses may not know the proper way to sterilize their equipment. Learning how to do so is the key to staving off germs, bacteria, and other harmful microorganisms.
Charting Errors
Mistakes made on a patient’s charts or other vital documentation can impede the work of every future medical professional. If the information is incorrect, they can’t suitably communicate with and care for the patient. To avoid making these kinds of blunders, exercise caution when recording patient information. Pay close attention to what you jot down and always double-check the information.
by Mother Nurse Love | Mar 10, 2021 | Featured Content
Patient care is one of a nurse’s most important duties, but it’s not their duty alone—it’s also extremely beneficial to include a patient’s family in caring for the patient. As a nurse, it’s your responsibility to make that happen. Here are a few of the best reasons to include family in patient care.
Provides Support System for Patient
A patient’s family is essentially a built-in support system for them. As such, it’s beneficial to keep families well-informed and involved in patient care to support the patient effectively. With a patient’s consent, inform their family of their situation, condition, and potential treatments, and consider allowing specific family members to be present for difficult conversations. Family can support a patient emotionally when they receive difficult news, and family can also help a patient evaluate treatment options and make difficult decisions.
Aids in a Speedy and Successful Recovery
When a patient’s family is involved in patient education and care, they will be more able to understand the patient’s condition and aid in a speedy and successful recovery. While patients, especially older patients or children, may not be capable of caring for themselves entirely, consistently, or effectively, a patient’s family can come alongside them and help them take the steps necessary to eventually reach recovery. For example, involved family members can help patients consistently perform necessary therapy or take their prescribed medications on time.
Improves Patient’s Mental Health
Being sick and confined to a hospital, especially for long periods, is often an isolating experience that takes a toll on a patient’s mental health and morale. That’s one reason why regular visits and involvements from a patient’s family are so crucial. A patient’s family makes up a vital part of their social network. A patient’s family who is regularly involved in their life and care can help them maintain a positive attitude, leading them to feel happier and more secure and experience better mental health overall.
These reasons to include family in patient care demonstrate the benefits that including family can offer a patient during a difficult time of sickness or hospitalization. If your patient is on good terms with their family and willing to include them, involve your patient’s family in education and care as much as possible. It will do both the patient and their family a world of good.
by Mother Nurse Love | Mar 10, 2021 | Featured Content
Have you recently been accepted into a nursing school? If so, congrats! It’s a huge accomplishment and one of the first, most crucial steps toward becoming a certified nurse. You’re probably excited to start your educational journey, but you’re also probably feeling a little anxious. There’s no doubt about it—nursing school is tough, and nursing as a profession is even harder! The hardest transition for incoming nursing students is the one from being a pre-nursing student to a bona fide nursing student. The classes are different, the exams are different, and most pre-nursing students aren’t prepared for such a sudden change. Luckily, these tips to prepare you for nursing school can help you head into nursing school feeling more prepared and confident.
Get Organized
If you want to be a successful nursing student, organization is key. You’ll have to take a wide variety of classes, and these classes require a lot of assignments, quizzes, and exams. It’s important to keep track of the various due dates and prioritize your assignments. The easiest way to keep track of your schedule is to purchase a desk calendar or a planner and write all the due dates on it. If you want to go above and beyond, you can assign a color to each course and mark the due dates with markers or stickers. Organization applies to your education, but it also applies to your finances, family life, and daily routine. Without a schedule, you might find yourself struggling to find the time to complete assignments and study.
Make Time for Relaxation
Another tip to prepare you for nursing school is to make time for relaxation. You probably won’t have much time for extracurricular activities once you’re in nursing school, but that doesn’t mean you can skimp on your own health and wellness. If you’re not feeling well, either emotionally or physically, it can negatively affect your ability to complete course work and stay focused in class. Once you’re a certified nurse, you’ll probably be uttering the phrase “Health comes first!” all too often. This phrase doesn’t just apply to your patients. It applies to you, too! Set aside a bit of time each week to spend doing things that make you happy and relaxed. You can use this time to hang out with family or friends, listen to music, read a book, work on one of your hobbies, or just lounge around.
Never Give Up
We won’t deny it—nursing school can be demanding, frustrating, and stressful. There might be a point where you’re tempted to give up, but it’s important to keep motivating yourself and continue pushing onward! You’ve worked hard to get yourself into nursing school. If you’re stressing out over a course, assignment, or exam, think about what awaits you at the end of your educational journey. Before long, you’ll be receiving a hard-earned pin from a loved one or mentor at your pinning ceremony. After that comes graduation and the pride of walking across the stage with your diploma and nursing certification in hand. You’ll find a fulfilling career at a hospital, care home, or other facility, where you’ll get to spend your days making sure everyone around you is happy, healthy, and living their best life. Once you reach the finish line, the long nights of studying and stress will all be worth it.
by Mother Nurse Love | Mar 5, 2021 | Featured Content
Nurses complete many tasks throughout the day to ensure patients feel safe and comfortable. Various tasks are essential to the well-being of the patients. Machines must be properly maintained by the medical staff to ensure they work properly. One machine that requires careful attention is an autoclave. Autoclaves are important because they use steam to kill harmful bacteria on medical instruments. This guide explains how to properly maintain an autoclave machine, so read on to learn more.
Why It’s Important
It’s important to understand how to properly maintain an autoclave machine so the machine lasts longer. If the autoclave stops working out of nowhere, it may require replacement. This results in unplanned downtime. Proper maintenance is important because it extends the life of the machine. An autoclave must function properly because it ensures patients and professionals are safe.
Routine Maintenance
The autoclave machine should undergo routine maintenance to ensure it functions properly. The ability to identify the components of an autoclave machine makes the maintenance much easier. Make sure the chamber is cleaned frequently. It’s important the autoclave is wiped down after each run to avoid corrosion. If something spills inside the chamber, wipe it up with non-chlorinated water immediately. It’s also important to check the values quarterly to ensure they work properly.
Yearly Maintenance
Many parts of an autoclave machine require yearly maintenance. Reach out to a professional service to ensure the autoclave machine is properly inspected and serviced. The number of times this occurs depends on how often the machine is run. Keep a record of when the autoclave machine is serviced, who it was serviced by, and what exactly was done. This ensures the yearly maintenance is consistent.
Everyone should do their part to keep the autoclave functioning properly. Assign someone to clean it each day to ensure that the chamber drain strainer is free of debris. Encourage others to wipe up spills in the chamber immediately. Proper maintenance is beneficial to the medical staff and patients, so it’s very important.
by Mother Nurse Love | Jan 20, 2021 | Featured Content
Most parents think of vacationing with young kids as an unwanted hassle. After all, vacations are often a time for unwinding, and having the kids around doesn’t necessarily promote relaxation. However, leaving the kids at home means they could be missing out on vital experiences that will shape the rest of their lives. Below are just a few of the top reasons to travel with kids that you should consider next time you book a vacation.
It’s a Time To Learn
There’s no better way to learn about the history and the culture of a particular area than by visiting. Sure, textbooks are a great start, but experiencing it firsthand creates a lasting memory they can reflect on inside a classroom.
Travel Encourages Curiosity
Kids are some of the most curious creatures on Earth. A new location is the perfect place to unleash all that curiosity. Travel will incite all sorts of new questions and creativity from your child.
It Teaches Them About Bravery
From swimming in the ocean to ziplining, there are plenty of new and exciting activities for your child to try. These experiences teach your child that it’s okay to be nervous, but being brave and trying new things can be worth it.
They’ll Be More Adaptable
Staying in the same place won’t help your child adapt to all the unknowns of the world. The more time you guys spend traveling, the more opportunities your child will have to escape their bubble and become comfortable with the unexpected.
It Opens Their Minds
Being close-minded never did anyone any good, so why would you want your kids to be? Traveling shows your kids that there are far more ways of life than the one they’re living. You’re never too young to learn how to respect those living differently than you.
Allowing your kids to learn outside of the classroom and opening their minds to new opportunities are just a few of the top reasons to travel with kids. Whether you plan to fly to a new country or take a road trip to the coast, consider bringing your kids along, too.
