While Amanda is still hanging out down south with The Mickey I thought I would send along Happy Puppy Mother's Day wishes from Amanda's most beloved puppy. So I took this picture of Haylie in one of her favorite spots, sitting on my lap getting her belly rubbed. It's a slightly awkward picture but I'm here by myself and Riley the boxer doesn't have opposable thumbs so there's no way she could take a cute picture of us. Even if Riley did have opposable thumbs she is a little slow and probably couldn't figure out my iPhone. Irregardless, I know Amanda is missing Haylie a lot right now *cough* and me *cough*, so I just hope this picture helped brighten her day and is making her anxious for her return home.
We have some fabulous reads today... a few quite creepy to satisfy the occasion and others to make you smile and touch your heart.
Let's go!
First of all, my friend TherapyDoc at Everyone Needs Therapy shared some tips and an entertaining yet “frankly” alarming story for us on About Those 8 Ways to Spot a Dishonest Date. (How’s that for scary?) “I’m not gonna lie,” but her post is totally interesting. “Honestly”... you may giggle, but it will leave you thinking!
Disappearing John, an ER nurse, writes about A Strange Outbreak in his area. What kind of outbreak, you ask? Well, it seems that in Arizona, people are coming down with pseudocyesis. Don’t know what that is? In a few words, it’s a false pregnancy. Yep, all the symptoms but no fetus. (Halloween appropriate? You can decide...) Ignoring all of the thoughts running around my head on mental illnesses and the multifaceted, overwhelming emotion behind some women’s desire for children... we’ll move right along. (But still... how would this rare syndrome be occurring repeatedly in one area?)
Braden snuck in two posts! How trick-or-treat-y of him! An ER nurse who is threatening us with morphine (I’m serious - check out his profile!) has two very great posts on “Never Events.” The first: It Isn’t a Never Event if it Isn’t Called a Never Event will probably make you laugh out loud. I did. Jump in and add your ideas for creative charting! His second post, Serious Never Events will make you stop and think. In our healthcare society, how dare a patient be held responsible for their own actions!! Right? Uhh... wait a minute... It’s our job to solve all of their problems and keep the inevitable from happening? Now that’s scary.
On another scary note, Karin proposed an interesting thought on her blog: It’s Over: The Nursing Shortage. As a nursing student, you may think that I am alarmed, but I’m not. I’ve actually wondered the same thing myself. The “shortage” the associations and media tell us about.... The one that makes naive high school seniors go to nursing school with big dreams of money and mansions and a fabulous schedule and cute scrubs? Yep, that one. Join in on the discussion in the post’s comments. [Disclaimer: Many people go into our field for the right reasons, but there are those who jump right in because they hear someone exaggerate the job security, benefits, hours, salary... I mean no disrespect to either. :)]
Perhaps a spooky coincidence, Nurse Laura at NurseConnect posted Are Nurses Feeling the Pinch?, proposing questions about our profession and the current state of the United States economy. How is it affecting us? Our jobs? Our job security? New nursing prospects? Nursing education? Join in the discussion. There’s truly a lot to think about.
Whew....
All this Halloween craziness and overall critical thinking sending your head for a spin? Neuro guru Alvaro submitted a post he wrote interviewing a University of Oregon neuroscience professor, Dr. Posner, about his research on the idea of Training: Attentional and Emotional Self-Regulation. It’s a very interesting read. Just watch out though - there’s a little scare hidden in there. Just click the link to the Stroop Test when you get there. Dr. Posner’s little teaser might just make you feel umm... not that smart! (Or it might just make you remember that you really needed to get a few more hours of sleep last night!)
And speaking of your head, I bet you’re wrong on something. Male nurses. Did you really know that they’ve been in our the care-taking role longer than women? Kathy at NurseConnect has all the details in A History Lesson on the Male Nurse. It’s quite interesting, and if you know much about feminism and its history, it’s even more interesting... perhaps upsetting. Nursing and related activities - whatever it was called at the time - has always gone through cycles being esteemed to being lowly and primitive. You’ll learn from Kathy that a long time ago (BC, not 1800!), it was a distinguished honor only for men. Funny how during a few of nursing’s “better” times, it was during the men’s role in the profession. Go check out this little history lesson and don’t forget to love the male nurses! I think they bring an entirely different mindset to the table and have many strengths and weaknesses that complement ours in the healthcare setting.
Next, let’s take a little break from the “scary” and go visit Running Wildly.... She sent in two posts, and they are both fabulous. Post-survival is near and dear to my heart since it’s her thoughts on wrapping up nursing school and getting ready to rejoin the world! (We all know that nursing students have no time to eat or sleep or breathe, let alone be a human being with an actual life...) In her post, she reminisces on what nursing school is and isn’t and how it has changed her. Next, you have to check out Jigsaw Puzzle - a moving story unfolds in the ER’s trauma room. There’s rushing and yelling and CPR and chaos. There’s no time for anything but fighting for a life. Sadly though, this time, medicine and the resilience of the human body aren’t enough. Running Wildly gently compares nursing with he lping patients put together the jigsaw puzzle of life. Unfortunately, sometimes the pieces don’t go together like the picture on the box. Her story and analogy are beautiful.
While we're on the more serious side, let’s not forget that today wraps up Breast Cancer Awareness month. Is breast cancer screening always a good thing, or does it sometimes do more harm than good? Even we as healthcare providers receive mixed information, so what is a patient to do? Are we accurately informing them or shying away from the topic because we don’t know ourselves? Thankfully, Sandy at Junkfood Science sorts out both arguments for us in Brest Cancer Screening - What's Right for You? It’s a long read, but every bit of it is packed with info. Sandy definitely did her research! Take your time to peruse her post and understand both sides. Knowledge is power, and we need to be well-versed both for ourselves and for the ability to equip our patients with the fair options they deserve.
And on that note, let’s wrap things up by talking more on informed decisions and being knowledgeable on both sides of an issue. Dr. Jessen from Highlight HEALTH showed me his fabulous post that is just full of information and links on both candidates' perspectives on healthcare topics. He was very clear in telling me that he sent this to Grand Rounds, too, but due to the election being less than a week and my belief that everyone is entitled to fair, unbiased knowledge, I’m recommending that you read his post, the 2008 Presidential Candidates on the Issues of Biomedical Research and Healthcare.
And that's all for this time! See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? We got a little freaked out in the beginning but by the end, it was more treats than tricks, right?
Thank you so much to everyone who submitted - all of the posts were wonderful, and it was a pleasure to read each one of them. Also, thank you to everyone who is reading this and supporting the nursing blogosphere. Take your time to explore these great posts, comment, learn, and make new friends.
Want some more good nursing stories? Check out my sidebar for info on a fabulous brand new compilation of hope-related musings by nurses called Meditations on Hope. (And sorry, shameless and way-excited plug here... one of the contributing writers was none other than yours truly!)
Today’s Guest Blogger is Amanda from This Crazy Miracle Called Life where she blogs about all aspects of life and whatever “random fabulosity” that comes to mind. Amanda is currently in college earning her nursing degree, and in her spare time, she enjoys traveling, creating, spending time with family and friends, and planning her upcoming wedding.
...
Since it’s Back to School time and a lot of us are getting back into college, I figured what better topic for Stephanie’s monthly Social Media Guest Blog than helpful scholarly resources. Now sure, some of you are done with college or chose other plans, but these things can work for many different things as well.
I will admit right off the bat that I had many more favorite sites than I ever thought I did so I’ll focus on the “social media/web 2.0″-geared sites in this post, and rather than go crazy with the world’s longest post, next week, I’ll post two additional posts on my own blog with many more resources. (Plus, as the semester progresses, I have a few more things to share, such as note-taking tricks, research paper hacks, and more!)
With social media overtaking the internet, if we can learn to search smart we will save loads of time. Take Mahalo for example. It’s a “human-powered search engine,” meaning instead of sifting through results that waste your time, everything that comes up is usually relevant to your topic. Mahalo is still in beta, and it doesn’t have a search result page for every topic, so it has its flaws, but for general information, this is my search engine of choice!
Chunk It
Chunk It is brand new, in beta, and it’s totally rocking my world!
If you’re just writing a simple essay where a few Google sources are fine, here’s what it can do:
Are you up against a deadline with an 8-page research paper due in the morning? Working with huge databases and journal articles? Check this out…
Their site has many more examples, but what this can do in PubMed, EBSCOhost, [insert your major's preferred database here] will just amaze you.
Social Bookmarking
This is social media, folks. Social bookmarking, in essence, is where users save their internet bookmarks (or “favorites”) onto a site of choice and “tag” them with keywords to make them easily discoverable both by themselves and friends, the public, groups, etc.
Many of the common sites can now sync with browsers so not only can a user access their bookmarks on the site, but they can also access them traditionally via their browser’s Bookmarks menu.
I used to enjoy Ma.gnolia but it was too limiting for me so I stopped using it. However, it just went opensource, so it’s definitely something I would keep an eye on!
How can social bookmarking help you? Well organization, for one. Also, it’s a great way to search and discover information for projects, study help, personal learning, etc.
Note: There are other similar sites like StumbleUpon,Reddit, and Furl, but I’ve found that those sites contain more “check out this cool story I found today” vs. the above, “here is my bookmark collection.” Of course, people will use any of those sites either way, but that is just my personal opinion. Try these last three for more news-type articles, or you can always go to Google News.
Learn How to Work Google
Most of us think we’re great at Googling. We use it as a verb, so of course we are! We know what * and + and ” does when we put them in the little Google bar. Well, did you know you can do much more than that to really narrow in your search? Just learning a few more tricks can save hours, I’m sure. I find myself using the same little Google operations in many other search engines as well - these really are imperative to any successful college student’s technological knowledge base. So if you don’t think you’re using Google (or large search engines) as efficiently as you’d like, if you’d like to review, or if you just want to learn a few more advanced tricks like how to search for only a PDF, check out these useful links:
Oh, I cringe to talk about Google again… But if you don’t mind (usually) ugly websites and sometimes what can amount to pretty deep digging, many professors have too much time on their hands and build extravagant websites dedicated to the subjects of their greatest adoration. There’s a couple ways to go about finding these sites that are usually information and link-packed.
Search for your course (Try chemistry not Introduction to Chemistry for Nursing Students if your college has weird course names) If you’re in college, don’t forget that a lot of basic college courses are called the same things as things you took in 10th grade. Remember our Google tricks? This is where typing +college +chemistry helps. That is still pretty vague though, so sometimes, I’ll type in the author of my textbook so I know I’m getting a better, closer match. Sometimes you have to dig, and creativity never hurts in your search term selection either.
Try running an .edu site-only search. (reminder: type this in the box site:.edu) Just because you don’t go to a certain school doesn’t mean you can’t use their links!
Two pretty similar sites, Scribd and DocStoc both serve the same purpose - hosting documents (many filetypes supported) that you can share (or make private) with friends or the entire world (via the sites or neat tools like embedding). The sites even look similar, so you can browse both. You can find all kinds of things like course notes, articles and papers on huge ranges of topics, scanned copyrighted documents (SparkCharts, scanned textbooks and study guides), and so much more. I’ll kind of leave this one at that, but I do want to warn you to use your own personal moral/legal judgment with the scans, and use extreme care as far as plagiarism goes. Just because someone posts a paper on Scribd doesn’t mean you can download it, turn it in, and your professor will be sure you wrote it.
FYI, SearchDocs.net has the ability to search both sites as well as others, but that’s all it does.
I’m keeping an eye on sites like ShareNotes and Incredicampus. They have a lot of growing to do, but you might be able to find something, and ShareNotes especially seems to have a lot of potential.
PROJECT PLANNING
Notefish
Notefish is a lot of fun. In Internet Explorer or Firefox, you just a need a little browser addon, and while you research your project or paper or whatever it is you’re working on, you can clip bits and pieces to add to the page. You can move things around, organize them, and basically, make your own little scrapbook of plans. You can share it, too! Check out this public page for a good example: Trip to NYC Notefish
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Yahoo Answers
Clueless on that last trig problem? Confused on a topic and you’d like to talk to a few professionals (or self-proclaimed “professionals”…. hey, we’re talking free here, people!)? Or feeling wise with your new scholarly knowledge and want to help others out? Yahoo Answers is the place. You can’t show up and post your entire chemistry worksheet and hope for someone to do it for you. You can, however, jump right in and search past questions, ask questions of your own, and use this site to explore, get help with specific things, ask for clarification perhaps on a math concept you don’t understand (maybe with an example problem), etc. Make sure you help back though - you lose “points” for asking questions and gain points for answering questions. Note that this is not a homework-help site - it’s a site for asking any question about anything, and a lot of the people there are really great about helping with educational/career/project questions.
Ning is the site where anyone can start their own social network for any topic! This has several applications for us:
Start a course Ning for all the members in your class to share notes, discuss, etc. Many professors are starting to do this as well.
Search for non-private course Nings already open. There are several professor-headed networks for people who need help in certain subjects or for students passionate about specialized majors. Also, there are several major-specific networks to join where you can make friends, share tips, blog, have discussions, post pictures, videos, etc. (Nursing major? We have almost 1200 nurses on Ning at NursesConnect) The bigger the groups, the more fun they are! (And Ning is definitely not just for school - run a few searches and you’ll find a group for just about anything!)
CHEAP TEXTBOOKS
Textbook Revolt
Sick of paying too much for books? Well we all know there’s power in numbers and our generation kind of rocks. So, why not boycott the textbook companies and start using sites like Textbook Revolt? I have yet to complete a successful “transaction” on this site, but I’ve heard many success stories, they just got a new owner, and the more students that join, the more the site will help us all!
Price Comparison Sites
Two of my favorites are Campusi and BigWords. I never buy from campus bookstores anymore and I lost track of how many hundreds of dollars I’ve saved. Seriously.
That’s all for Part 1!
I hope you enjoyed it. Don’t forget to check my blog next week (Monday and Wednesday) for the rest. I have more links and surprises that you will not want to miss!
Thanks to Stephanie for letting me share my expertise, and thanks, readers, for listening! Feel free to comment with your favorite sites, and if you are struggling with anything college-related that you think the internet may be able to solve, go ahead and post and I’ll see what I can do to address it next week.
Ahh, the weekend... finally... and just real quick, I have some BIG NEWS for you.
This past week, I traveled across the internet once again to guest post on a friend's blog. Run right over to my friend's site, Hey Stephanie! to see my post that kicks off my
3-part College Web Secrets series
Stephanie is a social media guru and blogs about fun ways that the internet can help you accomplish things faster and smarter. Every month, she features a guest blogger, so for my turn? Naturally, I chose to share the ways I use social media/web 2.0 resources to maximize my area of expertise, studying productivity and school efforts. When I started writing the article, I soon realized that the internet pretty much helps me in everything I do when it comes to productivity at school, so one thing led to another, and I realized there was no way it was all going to fit into one post.
SO...
Check back here on my blog Monday and Wednesday for parts 2 and 3. For Part 1 (jam-packed with over 2-dozen links!), go over to Stephanie's, and send all your friends, too. The focus of all 3 posts is college "hacks," but I can definitely see ways many other people can use these for several other uses. The overall key is productivity and timesavers... who doesn't need a little more of that, right? I'm so excited about my guest post, and I'm just as excited about what I have to share this week so please, please, please, tell your friends and check back, and I promise even you savvy techies will learn something! :)
Part 1: Social Media, College & You (Up at Hey Stephanie!)
Search Smart
Notes & Documents
Project Planning
Questions & Answers
Ultimate Interactions
Cheap Textbooks
Part 2: Get Organized: Your Space, Your Time, Your Web
Come see me over at That Girl's. I graced her visitors with a little of my Link Love (and some Haylie love, umm come on, does that really surprise you??) so head right this way to check out my post and explore all that's going on at her charming blog. Links, news, delicious home decor, videos, contests.... :)
Exactly 366 days ago (it is a leap year you know), the answer to the question I’ve waited to ask my whole life was answered. On July 18, 2007 Amanda and I officially became engaged to be married. Now I didn’t get anything flashy through this whole process like she does, well, besides getting to grin every time someone compliments the love of my life on her ring. But needless to say this last year has been incredible. I have become closer to her than I ever thought I could. And when I see how far we have come in just one year of being engaged, I’m exited for the day when she can nudge me in the morning instead of just txting me :)
This week has been rough for both of us...I mean I haven’t even seen her since Monday, and that just reaffirms to me how much I need her and how much we do depend on each other in everything we do.
So here’s to the next 805 days. I can’t wait to see what we are able to do together. You know, I think that’s my favorite word now too ;)
I love you with all of my heart.
Jonathan
Page 1 of 1 pages
c*est moi!
Amanda
I am 22 & currently spend my days nannying my itty bitties + going to college (working on my nursing degree, goal: pediatric oncology) & am honored to be a published writer in a nursing anthology & a contributor to many scrapbooking publications. i love hanging with my amazing friends, sister & family. i love my baby puppy haylie brooke and our silly doggie ri-ri. in my rare spare time, i read & get crafty. i thrive on organization, my mac repertoire, learning & absolute fabulosity. my favorite place in the world is paris. my favorite color is pink. i love being a nurse & i believe each one of my patients is precious. i'm a night owl & wish my lifestyle promoted such habits. i like lazy jammie days. i believe in god and am thankful for his hand on my life. i believe that life is too short to be anything but happy, & i’m thankful that a chronic liver disease + the effects of a car accident have taught me important values that most people learn far too late. i hope that the world will find hope, and my idea of a good day is one in which i made someone smile :)
Are you reading? Don't forget to comment!
Join my other internet friends and leave your mark!
Near and dear to my heart...
I am honored to be a part of this anthology on nursing and hope. Click to take a peek inside. :)
Disclaimer
Perspective, Disclosure, Reliability, Courtesy
I take my professional nursing standards very seriously. Please scroll to the bottom of the page to read about the promises I make to you regarding my site and any medical information found within.
While Amanda is still hanging out down south with The Mickey I thought I would send along Happy Puppy Mother's Day wishes from Amanda's most beloved puppy. So I took this picture of Haylie in one of her favorite spots, sitting on my lap getting her belly rubbed. It's a slightly awkward picture but I'm here by myself and Riley the boxer doesn't have opposable thumbs so there's no way she could take a cute picture of us. Even if Riley did have opposable thumbs she is a little slow and probably couldn't figure out my iPhone. Irregardless, I know Amanda is missing Haylie a lot right now *cough* and me *cough*, so I just hope this picture helped brighten her day and is making her anxious for her return home.
