Welcome to Episode 57

The Nursing Show is a proud member of the Blubrry Podcast Network.

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A podcast for Nurses, Nursing Students, and others interested in what it takes to be a Nurse

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News–

Traditional Nursing Values Improve Patient Care

Clinical Nurse Leader Program Expanded

Talk to teens about sex

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Tip of the Week — Sulfonamide Antibiotic Medication Review

Free Antibiotics Review Course (CE Available, too!)

WebMD on Sulfonamides for UTI

AllNurses.com Forum Entries for Antibiotic Review

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Stay informed as a nurse:

Subscribe to American Journal of Nursing via Amazon.com here

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Don’t miss an episode! Get the Nursing Show Newsletter by email. Fill out the email form in the right hand column of the site. Get it now!

Comment or share ideas here on the comment link below or by email:

Comments@NursingShow.com

Other Podcasts from Jamie Davis:

• The MedicCast (for EMTs, Paramedics, EMS field work)
• MedicCast News (Weekly short medical news program)
• MedicCast Live (Monthly live call-in show with a single EMS topic)
  
• Headliner News Roundup (Weekly single new item with facts and commentary)
  

Contact Me!

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Song this week:

Geoff Smith “Some Christmas Huggin and Kissin”

Click below for this song in iTunes

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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Nursing Show (NursingShow.com), part of the MedicCast Network, reached its 100,000th pair of ears this week.  At the same time the shows of the MedicCast Network collectively crossed the half million mark! The network is one of the top medical content providers online, independent of large media publishers and special interest groups.  MedicCast Network programming is focused on the medical professionals and students in a variety of fields and reaches audiences worldwide.

Medical Training and Information in a Tight Job Market

Despite the recession surrounding the rest of the job market, the health services market is booming.  Thousands begin training each year to fill voids in the health care job market as nurses, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians.  Each of these individuals struggles with learning a the difficult skills of a trained medical professional, many while maintaining families and working other jobs.  There was a need for some way to educate and motivate these people to continue working towards their goals.  Many turned to online resources as a way to supplement their education.

The Network started with the MedicCast podcast for EMTs and paramedics. Since its first episode launched in February of 2006, the MedicCast podcast has striven to reach the emergency medical community with quality medical news and tips for the EMS provider.  Since then, along with sister programs like the Nursing Show and MedicCast News, the MedicCast Network has attracted new advertisers to the online space and is planning strategies for partners in 2009.

Each week’s free episodes feature news and commentary for their focused audiences.  The listeners also receive a weekly tip or procedural review aimed at refreshing knowledge and reviewing techniques.  Many subscribers are students in their respective fields and use the weekly updates as study aids and test preparation tools.  Listeners are able to tune in online using any web browser, download and listen on their mp3 players, or burn the episodes to a CD.  “One of the advantages for busy professionals is the way the show provide the audience a way to listen on their own schedule: in the car, around the house, or doing chores,” says host and MedicCast founder, Jamie Davis, the Podmedic.

About the Host, Jamie Davis, the Podmedic

Jamie Davis is a registered nurse, a licensed paramedic, and has training in broadcast audio and video production.  In 2005, he began recording programs for himself as a study aid and for refresher training.  He quickly realized that others would benefit from his tactics.  Since then, he has made acquaintances around the world and has interviewed leaders and innovators in a variety of health fields.  In addition to his role as host of the network’s programs, Jamie is also a nationally recognized speaker on the use of new media tools for higher education.

The programs in the network include the Nursing Show, The MedicCast, and the MedicCast News.  The Nursing Show a program for nurses, by nurses reaches out to nurses, nursing students, and educators with focused tips, medication and procedure reviews just for today’s busy nursing professional.  The MedicCast is a weekly program for EMTs and paramedics with consistently high ratings in online podcast directories like iTunes.  The MedicCast News is a short news program produced in the middle of the week and is found at the Podcaster News Network.

I’m often asked about how I stay current on so many different aspects of the medical fields. Well, the answer is that I do a lot of reading. It’s not that hard, really. There are a number of excellent resources out there for nurses and nursing students. The most notable of these are the available nursing journals and periodicals published every month.

I’ve compiled a list of my favorites. Many of them also offer online access to full text versions of their articles for subscribers which is a must for those of us who work online all of the time. Here they are in no particular order with links to Amazon.com so you can subscribe if you’d like.

• AJN: American Journal of Nursing
• Nursing Magazine
• Nursing Made Incredibly Easy
• American Nurse Bi-Monthly

Do you have something else that you’d like to share with the listeners.  I’m always looking for other good resources so let us know.  Send an email to Comments@nursingshow.com and share your favorite nursing reading options.

(disclosure: These links are part of the Amazon affiliate store for the Nursing Show and part of what you spend there does come back to help support the Nursing Show site.)

I love to hear about people becoming more active in their government process. This past week I noticed this article about hundreds of cardiac patients converging on Congress to urge them to spend more on research on combating heart disease and stroke. This was all part of the American Heart Association’s Congressional Lobby Day called “You’re the Cure on the Hill.”

The patients and AHA representatives all urged congress to fund a “strong and sustained investment in research and prevention.”

Here are some of the numbers cited in the article:

• Nearly 2,400 Americans die of cardiovascular disease each day
• An average of one death every 37 seconds
• Two-out-of-three U.S. adults are overweight
• One-out-of-three is obese.
• The number of overweight children has quadrupled in the past 30 years
• More than 46 million adults smoke daily
• About 4,000 people ages 12-17 begin smoking every day

How involved are you in the health policy debate? This election year, I expect health care issues to be on the front burner. We see every day the way that the system is broken. Broken in so many ways that it almost seems impossible to fix. But if it’s bad now, how much worse will it be as more experienced nurses retire and the number of uninsured patients, elderly patients, and other at risk groups continue to rise?

Not easy questions but certainly ones that need answering. Contact your congress person today and let them know where you stand on the issues surrounding health care. It’s time nurses were heard loud and clear!

Find and contact your elected officials in Washington, D.C. at the links below:

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Welcome to Episode 22

The Nursing Show is a proud member of the Blubrry Podcast Network.

Right Click to download (Macs Option Click)

Subscribe with iTunes here (must have iTunes installed — it’s free)

RSS Feed to subscribe (copy url to Juice, Zune Marketplace, or your favorite podcatcher)

Click the arrow to play the Nursing Show

A podcast for Nurses, Nursing Students, and others interested in what it takes to be a Nurse

—————————-

Sponsors

Get 10% off Pepid’s portable nursing solutions

Nursing Show Listener Deals at GoDaddy.com –

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News:

Rerouting ER Traffic to Clinics and PCPs

Poison Spiders Shut Down Hospital (no, really!)

Concerns About Proposed Standard

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Tip/Trick of the Week — Parkinson’s Disease

NINDS Parkinson’s Disease Information Page

Medline Plus Parkinson’s Disease Page

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Don’t miss an episode! Get the Nursing Show Newsletter by email. Fill out the email form in the right hand column of the site. Get it now!

Comment or share ideas here on the comment link below or by email:

Comment@NursingShow.com

Other Podcasts from Jamie Davis:

• The MedicCast (for EMTs, Paramedics, EMS field work)
• MedicCast News (Weekly short medical news program)
• MedicCast Live (Monthly live call-in show with a single EMS topic)
  
• Headliner News Roundup (Weekly single new item with facts and commentary)
  

Contact Me!

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This week –”Streetlight Flicker” by the band Winter Circle

Click here to check out other Songs from the MedicCast Network Podcasts at the iTunes Store.

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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision may have a significant impact on the future of major medical device and pharmaceutical lawsuits.  The Court decided that a lawsuit against Medtronic, Inc. was improper based on the fact that the FDA oversight for acceptable adverse effect and outcome rates should not be second guessed in the courts.

Read more of this LA Times article here.

Supporters of the Court’s decision say that the pace of lawsuits against medical device manufacturers was fast approaching the point that they were stifling innovation in the marketplace.  Detractors argue that the current tort system provides oversight and discovery of industry cover-ups.  They might be right considering the recent revelations I discussed regarding drug companies covering up adverse reactions and effectiveness studies in favor of making money in higher sales.

This protection may be extended to include pharmaceutical companies since the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case in October concerning Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and a lawsuit against one of their products.

Yes, I said yellow fever. In the first reported cases of yellow fever in 60 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed the reports of the disease in Latin America.  Officials are checking on availability of vaccine supplies.

Read the article here.

Yellow fever is a vector borne virus carried by mosquitoes.  Symptoms usually appear in 3 stages about 6 days after infection:

1. a period of fever, anorexia, muscle pain, headache, nausea/vomiting, and jaundice.
2. a brief period of remission (24 hours), most will recover at this point but some will progress to the next phase (intoxication).
3. onset of symptoms of multi-system organ failure including general bleeding disorders, liver and kidney failure, delirium, seizures, and coma.

Once contracted, treatment of the yellow fever involves treatment of symptoms and side effects only.  prevention of the disease is more important. Administration of the vaccine 14 days prior to contact is recommended for persons traveling in regions known to be at risk for yellow fever.  Other precautions include wearing long sleeves and sleeping inside mosquito proof netting.

In another study about antibiotic effectiveness, the analysis by the Dutch researchers is that the use of antibiotics for the treatment of inner ear in children is not effective in reducing fluid build up or effusion in the middle and inner ear. They recommend that the use of antibiotics as a method of reducing the associated fluid build up during these infections.

Read the article here.

Opponents of this report don’t dispute the dangers of overuse of antibiotics but point out that in cases of Otitis Media, these patients are getting their antibiotics not to reduce effusion but to reduce the infection causing the inflammation and pain, something this meta analysis did not look at.

Alternatives may need to focus on pain reduction rather than treatment of infection if indeed the presentation of fluid build up behind the ear drum is happening regardless of treatment and resolves on its own. Look for more articles on this study and further trials to look into the effectiveness of antibiotic treatment for this and other common infections in the future.

Patient education is an ongoing task.  Part of that process is to improve on our own knowledge and education along the way to provide better and more complete answers on demand.

I found this article over at WebMD that discusses a list of tips offering non-surgical alternatives to urinary incontinence problems among women.  It seems pretty comprehensive, starting with Kegel exercises and moving through a series of lifestyle adjustments as well.

Look it over.  Do you have other options that you use when counseling your patients?  Use the comment link below to share your alternatives with the other Nursing Show visitors.

You can also email me at comments@nursingshow.com and I’ll post them for you.