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In a well-publicized case, a nurse at Seattle Children’s Hospital mistakenly administered 10 times the prescribed dose of calcium chloride to an eight-month-old baby. The baby died. The nurse immediately reported the error, the only serious medical error she made in her 24-year career. She was escorted from the hospital, placed on administrative leave, and eventually fired. Seven months later, she committed suicide. The incident left many nurses wondering, “Could this happen to me?”

At some point in all of our lives, a nurses has had an impact on each and every one of us. Nurses give their skills, time and dedication everyday to help those around them. 

Telemedicine isn’t a new concept. It’s been around for more than 25 years. Basically, it’s the ability to use electronic communications to exchange medical information from one site to another. What’s new is that more than 200 hospitals are now using telemedicine―primarily in intensive care units, but also in emergency departments, postanesthesia care units, critical access facilities, and long-term acute care hospitals―to provide a second set of eyes that can ultimately improve patient care.

Pain is a complex process that involves an unpleasant sensation that may be caused either by actual or potential tissue damage. Essentially, it is whatever the person who is experiencing it says it is. Pain can be chronic or acute, mild to severe, and of sudden or slow onset. Acute pain is usually experienced for a limited time and confined to one area. In most cases, it is a warning of injury.

As air travel becomes more common and more passengers take to the skies, medical emergencies are occurring more frequently in flight. Crew members are trained to handle some common medical problems and, in some instances, they can receive medical advice from physicians on the ground. But these options are no substitute for having a licensed medical professional on board. Could you be asked to lend assistance on your next flight?

The disruptive doctor has become almost a cliché: the hot-tempered egomaniac who flies off the handle, berating nurses or other coworkers further down the hospital pecking order for their incompetence. Like most clichés, this one unfortunately has some basis in fact. Several studies make this phenomenon disturbingly clear: Disruptive physician behavior is an issue that is too important to ignore.

For some time, it was bacteria on the cell phones of health care workers that were thought to present a risk of nosocomial infection to patients. A new study reveals that it’s actually the bacteria on patients’ cell phones that is more troubling.

For many years, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been a source of infection for hospitals patients. Lately, MRSA infections have been on the rise among people who were not hospitalized. This community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) is microbiologically different from hospital-associated MRSA and requires different treatment. 

Across the hospital, acute pain is a major health concern, and you and your colleagues face the challenge of managing your patients’ highly individualized experiences of pain. You know that patients have a right to appropriate pain assessment and management. You also recognize that poorly controlled pain can slow patient recovery, reduce the sense of well-being, and distress family members and friends.

Challenges are mounting for emergency departments (EDs) across the nation. The AHA News reports that the annual number of ED visits rose by 16.8 million from 1997 to 2004, while the number of hospitals with 24-hour EDs fell 12%. Along with increased patient visits and fewer EDs, the nursing shortage in some areas of the country may help account for the fact that the average ED wait to see a physician jumped from 22 minutes to 30 minutes—and from 8 to 20 minutes for patients with myocardial infarction (MI).