Category: Uncategorized

I had a reader ask me about my essentials for travel, especially for long flights. A fitting question, since I am typing this while I wait to board a flight to Tokyo. That’s a 14 hour jaunt from Dulles to Narita, and while I’m grateful for the non-stop, it’s a serious haul. So here’s what I have to have when I’m making a trip like this:

Medscape has a free (very) concise overview on Drugs of Abuse for clinicians that’s worth perusing. It’s in no way comprehensive, but it is a good way to familiarize yourself with some of the newer drugs you may be seeing in your practice, such as Molly and bath salts. Medscape requires registration to access the site, but it’s free and worth doing– I get a boatload of CEs from the site for my various certifications and licensures.

Trust me, I know that I owe you folks some Since Last We Spoke posts, but the fact is, right now I am marathon working so that I can be on the road most of the week and then come home, switch suitcases and swap dirty laundry for clean and then get back on a plane to Japan for an unknown number of days. That means I haven’t been reading a whole lot of anything for personal gratification. But I did see this–and it is perfection. At least the 1st 90 seconds or so is–because it’s the part that is so relevant, no matter what you do for a living.

The intersection of science and sustainability? Be still my nerdy heart. A worthwhile read from Help Scout: 10 Academic Insights on Building, Motivating and Managing an Exceptional Team.

In the spirit of  being immersed in the current sustainability course, you know I’m excited about this: Financial Literacy as an Essential Element in Nursing Management Practice, a new article summary over at Medscape. It’s was published this spring in Nursing Economics (if you have access to the journal, you can see the citation and abstract here, as well). Medscape is free to access, but requires registration. If you are managing a program (or aspire to manage a program), it’s a good read. There are some good ideas you may want to run with.

Polaris Project has just released their report, State Ratings on Human Trafficking Laws 2013. From the press release:

A majority of states still lack laws that protect victims of sex trafficking and help survivors rebuild their lives. Only 12 states have full “safe harbor” laws that protect child victims of sexual exploitation, and another six have passed partial versions of the law; 14 states allow prostitution convictions as a result of trafficking to be removed or “vacated” from criminal records; 22 states mandate or encourage posting of the national human trafficking hotline; and 33 states have passed legislation that provides, funds, or plans for victim assistance and protection services.

Read the full report here (PDF); the analysis here (PDF). Individual state reports are also available.

In case you have not heard, the US Public Health Service has updated the guidelines for management of occupational exposure to HIV and recommendations for prophylaxis. You can read the full article in September’s Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, but I have some of major bullet points after the jump:

I am knee deep in two brain-warping activities today: editing and reviewing really terrible, terrible photos (not in quality, but in subject matter). From time to time, I need a bit of brain bleach, and that’s what my Bloglovin role is for (which replaced my Google Reader, RIP). So as I was perusing the blog entries, I came across this one, from a lifestyle blog I read, Cup of Joe.

I’ve had a few questions over the summer from people wanting more information about how to publish. So I’ve put together some helpful online, full-text resources from credible sources on writing for nursing/health science publications. Let me know if there are others you’ve come across that you find particularly helpful.

So many of us work for nonprofits in this field. And if you have any experience in writing federal grants as a part of that job, I think you will particularly agree with this.

{For your daily dose(s) of humor, I highly recommend the new Tumblr, When You Work at a Nonprofit.}

This month’s Nursing has a free CE offering, Open the Door for LGBTQ Patients. I like it for it’s review of terminology and suggested history questions, along with its reference section, which includes the Joint Commission’s field guide (PDF), and the IOM report on the health of LGBTQ people. It’s a short and easy read (meaning it’s a brief overview, so this shouldn’t be the only thing you read on the subject), and there are education credits attached if you need them, so probably a good way to spend a little time. Do follow the footnotes–they will lead you to some concepts we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about in our professional circles. Intersectionality, anyone?

I was supposed to have an Articles of Note post up yesterday, but in the mad race of this week, it just didn’t happen. But that’s not the purpose of this post–I’ll have it up next week and that will be that. No, the purpose of the post is to share a little food for thought that’s much needed on my end, as I have been obsessing over my calendar.

So there’s this: a truly fascinating article in yesterday’s NY Times, In a Culture of Disrespect, Patients Lose Out. The premise of the article, which is inspired by a pair of articles published in a 2012 issue of Academic Medicine (Part I and Part II, full text), can be gleaned from this statement:

When we tolerate a culture of disrespect, we aren’t just being insensitive, or obtuse, or lazy, or enabling. We’re in fact violating the first commandment of medicine. How can we stand idly by when our casual acceptance of disrespect is causing the same harm to our patients as medication errors, surgical mistakes, handoff lapses and missed lab results?

One of the more eye-opening pieces I’ve read in sometime: I’m Not A Person With a Disability: I’m a Disabled Person. I truly had never considered this perspective.

This week has been…interesting. I have been falling into my bed exhausted every night, so I haven’t been reading much. But last night a series of tweets lead me to this article, which I figured I’d share. Not all of it applies to clinicians, but I am extremely enamored with several points (especially numbers 1 and 2), which direct all good scientists to, in part, do things like keep idea notebooks and generate ideas broadly rather than in an attempt to solve a particular problem. Awesome. I know–so nerdy.

I got an email from a colleague who was thinking about leaving her practice–she was torn between loving the work and despising her manager. Despising her manager was winning. Mostly she just wanted to vent, but she was asking with great seriousness if there was anything she could do to change her manager. And my experience is, no, there isn’t. The people I most enjoy working for are the people I most enjoy working with and those folks bring some fundamental qualities to the table that I need in order to feel like I can positively contribute to a project or a team. But I can’t force people to have those qualities–I can only seek them out whenever possible (and I am immensely grateful that I have the luxury to do this). There’s a reason that I tend to work with/for the same people over and over. You cannot overemphasize the importance of a positive culture of leadership and management (be it leading/managing projects or people).

Well, folks, there’s always someone who has to rain on the parade. In this case it’s (naturally) an anonymous commenter whose contribution was deleted immediately (because I have a no nastiness policy for comments on this site) complaining about too much gay in my posts. I was told I should spend more time sticking to what’s relevant–so let me just enlighten you, anonymous commenter: