PALS

Working at a pediatric hospital is great.  I truly love the patients I work with and get a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I see patients from other parts of the hospital or I hear a really great "miracle" story from one of the other floors.  What terrifies me is PALS.

Before I started at my current job, I had BLS and ACLS certification (I did not know I would be working with kiddos at the time).  Well, that was two years ago and it's time for renewal and appropriate certification, a.k.a. PALS.

I've been involved in two codes in my nursing career.  Both during clinicals as a student.  One was an adult on the ICU unit, and they were not my patient, so I was asked to just stand back and observe as my fellow nursing student was fully participating.  The second was a pediatric patient who went into status asthmaticus shortly after we arrived on shift and I was given the job of writing down all the medications that were given to this patient.  Thankfully our patient survived, but my heart still aches for the parents that had to live through this episode.  Which brings me back to PALS.

Thankfully, if we keep our eyes open we can catch a pediatric patient tanking before they go into cardiac arrest.  I went in to do the hands on, skills portion of PALS today and was very nervous.  As a psych nurse, I do not deal with the same issues that a typical med/surg unit may deal with on a day to day basis.  However, I did surprise myself with what I still know and my ability to bring everything back to our basic training in nursing school, good ol' ABC's.  Although I know that I am a nurse, and have the education to prove that I am a nurse, I still need those reminders that regardless of what type of nurse you are, you have the information and skill, you may just need to brush off the dust a bit to find those skills.  Yes, psych nurses are trained to save lives too.

RN Lead Groups

Our unit recently implemented RN lead groups at work with our patients.  With that said, searching the internet for content on how to lead a RN group has brought few results.  Maybe it's my search method, maybe I haven't spent enough time searching, but at this point I am turning to creating my own group ideas with the help of my trust nursing diagnosis handbook, online medical references and good old Pinterest for ideas.  My group topic parameters were wide open, which is a good thing.  I initially thought I could teach the kids about their medications, hygiene, nutrition, etc.  I've tried a few of these topics and I've had an epiphany.  First, teach the kids on what they want to know.  My number one question from the kids is how do they get out of the hospital.  This has become my journey group, which, depending upon the group of kids has been fairly successful.  Second, teach them about what I know.  I've "taken over" the weekly BHT cooking group and have incorporated nutrition (sometimes) in that group with the kids.  This group appeals to my foodie side as I love food, but the twist is I have to make an item with what we have on the unit and if it needs to be cooked, I only have a microwave.  Challenging? Yes.  Impossible? No.  Tasty?  Believe it or not, we've come up with some great recipes with minimal ingredients.  Third, teach what I love, which happens to be being healthy.  I've incorporated the benefits of exercise with the fifty-two fitness card game, and tried it out for the first time yesterday.  Let's just say I think we picked all high cards in a row and my shoulders and quadriceps are sore today, and I am glad we only went through half the deck.  However, the kids stuck with it and enjoyed it until the end.

Happy New Year!  With the new year comes resolutions, goals, the changing of ways.  Although I am not much of a resolution person, I do have some goals for the coming year:

1. Add new recipes that are delicious, easy and healthy.  I'm stuck in a rut on this one.

2. Work towards the run the year challenge.  I know I can do this as it is only 5.5 miles per day.  However, I have to be careful as I also am doing triathlon training and am prone to overuse injuries.

3. Tweak my own diet routine.  I tend to eat really healthy and stay on track while at work and on my days off...until late in the afternoon when I feel like I am starving and need to cave in to each and every snack I see.  I am going to try to add in a protein boost in the early afternoon to see if this helps.

4. Stretch more.  I have a bum hip which could use a little more love.

What are you working towards in 2016?