Welcome to Change of Shift. As usual the posts are wonderful and the submissions will not disappoint. I enjoyed the recent Grand Rounds' format of a stroll through a Garden, so I am adopting the style. However, I thought it appropriate to walk readers through a college campus, after all, I am a nursing student!
Welcome to campus! Our first stop on the college campus tour is the lectern, a place where ideas are brought to fruition, and theory examined in an atmosphere of teaching.
Nursing Studio kicks this portion of the tour off with an informative piece on
ACLS. Setting the bar for all of us, she has mastered the audioblog feature for your listening pleasure and offers her post as a podcast! Much better than chalkdust and erasers.
Unbounded Medicine follows with a helpful primer regarding
Gallstone Ileus.
The next stop on our tour is the faculty lounge, where the experienced teachers go to share their war stories, and their personal feelings. A place of retreat. A place every student, could they be a fly on the wall, would learn so much regarding the "real world" they are preparing for.
Mediblogopathy sits down for a break first, as a new "faculty member" to her blog is introduced. Welcome Paeds RN, and thanks for the advice to fellow faculty in Compromise. The next faculty member to stop in for a break is Dr. Schwab at Surgeonsblog. He shares his gut-wrenching experience with a young Memorable Patient no. 4. Maybe Donorcycle would like to offer him a drink after that story as she relates a story about teen-suicide that is a good reminder not to get to cynical in Good For Her. Warrior Mom follows with her experience in going the extra mile for a patient in Empathy. Digital Doorway lightens the faculty discussion in re-telling his own experience as a vet and ailurophile in The Nurse as Vet. Finally, OncRN admits, with a level of honesty that only comes out when the faculty lounge door is closed, that somedays she is just going for the Oscar in I'd Like to Thank The Academy.
What would a university be without the local cafe? A place where students can find an escape, chatting with old friends and meeting new ones. How relaxing it is to grab a latte, open up the laptop and enjoy a favorite blog, or download iTunes to the iPod?
A newcomer to the healthcare blogging scene, Drug Induced Hallucinations, is welcomed into the cafe with a creative approach to writing in EMS Concerto. Blissful Entropy joins our Paramedic student at the cafe table and expresses much deserved gratitude in Thanks To The Frontlines. The conversation switches gears when Its a Nursing Thing vents about her arithmophobia and shares a song from her iPod with Math Sucks, Jimmy Buffet says so. Improbable Optimisms shares her feelings about how the people that she ministers to in an ED embody Christ with God in The ER. Finally, KT Living takes a seat and shares a shift experience that almost broke her as a nurse. Sounds like it was friends and fellow nurses who helped her through a tough experience. Thankfully the cafe offers complimentary Kleenex!
Finally, a spot on campus near and dear to everyone's heart, the library. Students and faculty alike explore the printed word for a look into history, or possibly for work on a research paper. Whatever the purpose the book serves, it is a powerful tool in eliciting a wide range of emotions, points of view, and in furthering that which was spoken of from behind the lectern. What do the stacks hold this week?
Our first selection from the shelves appears to be a well written biography. Fat Doctor authors Supermom, RN, MN, CDE. Emergiblog writes a persuasive essay exploring a personal experience with Hospice care several years ago and how it has evolved since then in Valley of The Shadow. Has it been a good or not-so-good evolution? Wrapping up our tour through the library is a historical look back from Nurse Ratched in Do You Remember When. This is the type of writing I enjoy the most, history. We can never seem to imagine life as they experienced it, but a few generations from now, the same will be said of us..."How did they put up with that?"
This concludes your campus tour. Hopefully you have enjoyed your stroll. Fall is coming and soon the leaves will be changing, the drum corps will be audible practicing for the first home football game of the season, and us students will be back to class, learning, experiencing and blogging all about it!