Christmas Already?

I'm wondering how it can be Christmas already.

Last night I cooked the turkey The Man's work gave him as a Thanksgiving bonus. I made stuffing, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and still had cranberry sauce left over from the big batch I took to the 'official' Thanksgiving at my brother's. I only made cranberry sauce, rolls, and a cheesecake for that dinner. We brought home the leftover cranberry sauce because I knew we had a whole turkey ourselves, but there weren't really any other leftovers. SO, last night we basically had Thanksgiving dinner all over again. Now my fridge is full of the leftovers The Man has been craving!

I brined this turkey - it was my first time doing that with anything. It was really so simple, and even though I only soaked it for 5 hours, it was so moist and juicy. It made a difference! I would recommend anyone try brining with turkey or chicken. Here is my starting point for the brine. I did not have veggies on hand other than one small onion I put in the stuffing, so I used a heaping tablespoon of chopped garlic. I also put in about two teaspoons of Liquid Smoke (I made 2 gallons of brine for a 14.5lb turkey). I usually add that to marinades - I like a touch of smokey flavor. I also cut the sugar in half, because I had read somewhere comments that it can cause the turkey to get that sweet taste like ham. I didn't want that, I wanted smokey/garlicy! I used pickling salt rather than kosher salt because I had that on hand. It also has no additives like kosher salt, but is finer.

You might check out the cranberry sauce recipe too - it is so easy and people just rave about it. This year I used whiskey rather than Grand Marnier, it's all good! Make it a few days in advance - it's even better if it's allowed to sit for a bit.

So anyway, back to Christmas. I've still got Halloween decorations in the garage that need to be put back into their boxes for storage. I've got a fridge full of turkey. How can I possibly be thinking of putting up a tree tonight? I must be CRAZY! Muah ha ha ! ;)

In job search news - I had two telephone interviews yesterday and am interviewing in person for one of them on the 6th. It sounds very positive. Some of the other applications I put in last week haven't contacted me yet, but there was a 4-day weekend there, so I'm expecting to have a good response after they get a chance to get to them.

In weather news - we were waiting for snow to come. The news channel said we might get 0-2", and we did. We got the "0" part. I went outside into the frigid air last night and could smell the snow. It was out there, but fell on other hills in other counties. I'm one of those people who loves snow - as long as the electricity stays on.

Nominations for November

Nominations are now open for NurseBlog of the Month for November! Remember, blogs who were nominated for October are automatically put in the running for November. Is there anyone else you'd like to see? Nominations will close after the last day of this month, and voting will take place the first 5 days of December.

Seeing People Die

I want to put a link up to a great post over at Head Nurse.

Trained UK RNs Can Write Rx

This is only part of the article - to see the whole article, go here. If you do not have a Medscape account, they're free and you can sign up for some pretty neat newsletters with cutting-edge articles and information about interesting things in journals you wouldn't normally have access to (no, they didn't pay me to say that... ;) )

Laurie Barclay, MD - Nov. 21, 2005

On Nov. 10, UK Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt announced that the UK Department of Health would expand prescribing powers for nonphysician healthcare professionals. Although UK nurses have long been prescribing drugs for minor injuries, experienced nurses and pharmacists who undergo specific training will be able to prescribe a much broader range of drugs, beginning in the first half of 2006.

"As part of government policy, the [UK Department of Health] proposed the extension of prescribing rights to other healthcare professionals for a number of reasons, The Department of Health wished to make better use of existing skilled professionals and ensure more flexible multidisciplinary working," Dr. Tully said. "It was seen as one way to improve the quality of services to patients, whilst maintaining patient safety, increasing patient choice, and improving access to healthcare."

"The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has been lobbying for nonmedical prescribing for around 20 years," RCN national prescribing adviser Matt Griffiths, RGN, FAETC, IESP, told Medscape. He cited a 1986 government report, known as the Cumberlege report, showing that "this highly trained group of professionals were having their time wasted by waiting for doctors to sign prescriptions for drugs that they were competent to prescribe."

"The new legislative changes last week allow suitably trained nurses and pharmacists to act as independent prescribers, with responsibility for 'the assessment of patients with undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions and for decisions about the clinical management required, including prescribing,' " Dr. Tully said. "Acting within their professional competence, they will be able to prescribe any drugs, other than controlled drugs, without having a patient-specific CMP agreement by an independent prescriber in advance. Prescribing complex medication regimens at hospital admission or discharge, for example, are not, and never have been, amenable to the constraints of CMPs."

Nurses wishing to prescribe according to the new policy must be registered nurses, with a minimum of three years postregistration experience. This should not present a significant obstacle for most; a recent evaluation showed that about 90% of UK registered nurses had more than 10 years of postregistration experience.

Other requirements are that they should already have the specialist skills, qualifications, and experience within their own field; they must be seconded with managerial support; and they must complete a 38- to 40-day course over six months, under the supervision of a medical mentor. The course is at degree level, and assessments include written examinations, essays, and objective structured clinical examinations.

Last Week

I don't know what to post - I just haven't been feeling my usual chipper self.

I have to look for a new position because I resigned from the unit I went through residency on. It wasn't what I thought it would be. Even though I was miserable there and know this will be a change for the better, I still feel like I let myself down.

My husband knows how I was feeling and he supports me completely, which helps a whole lot. I saved almost all of the money I've made in the past few months, and paid off all of my old bills and credit cards (which didn't amount to much) already, so I'm sitting in a much better position to be unemployed for a few weeks than I was when I graduated.

I don't know what I'm looking for right now, and I guess that makes me saddest of all.

It's like I was taking a train ride to New York, and right at the very end of the trip there's a roadblock, and someone says "Well, stay here in Jersey - it's practically the same thing!" It isn't.

Shock Trauma

Just wanted to put up a link to this book, Shock Trauma, that Pat (a new NurseBlogger) has written. I haven't read it yet, but the reviews from Amazon are all really good.

October's Blog

It's final - Kim at Emergiblog is the winner of the October NurseBlog award. She gets a beautiful trophy badge, a bottle of awesome Bath and Body Works antibacterial hand cleaner, a special link above the NurseBlogs section, and the love of her fellow nurses!

Oh My God - It's Full of Stars!

I suppose by now you all know Kim at Emergiblog. She's finally got a spot over on the sidebar! (yeah, I'm slow sometimes....) ;)

"Genderist", an oncology nurse from Tennessee, has a blog called Haiku of the Id, which was nominated for this month's NurseBlog of the month award. I haven't heard about any CEU's that involve nice steak dinners over here yet! :)

Coffee and Conversation in a Smoky Room (which, because of space constraints I will have to refer to as 'Coffee and Conversation') is written by Jodi, a student nurse. She offers a cool psych analysis of the world of Winnie the Pooh.

The NHS Confessional is written by someone claiming their name to be 'Polly Pharmacy' (gotta love that!) who says they are a 'bog standard' NHS nurse. It's very insightful and a fun read.

Life in the NHS is written by Julie, who lives just North of London. I just love hearing stories from people doing the same job I do, but on the other side of the globe! Doesn't it seem the world gets smaller everyday?

Student Nurse, PRN is an LPN student in California. She's getting quite a bit of experience this week at clinicals!

Millner's Dream is written by a woman who just went to her very first clinical experience today! How exciting, we'll have to hear about how that went. She's a "returning student" like I was (and so many others). She has been a doula though, so at least she's going to have an easy time in mother/baby.

Indigo Soul just finished up her first year as a nurse and is moving on to a new position at a new facility. She is also a Massage Therapist and Reiki Master - her blog is really pretty, too.! She's got a good following of readers and posts frequently. I bet you'll like this.

Pixel RN has a great blog showing the difficulties of working in a harsh unit as a new nurse. Dang, girl, I totally feel your pain.

Another new nurse who's having a hell of a time is Jennerizer at My First Year as a Nurse. My god, the things she and her friend have got to put up with. I know how it is, I'm having a difficult time myself.

PaedsRN's blog Geek Nurse goes into some very good detail about what it's like to work in a pediatric ICU. He's an RN in New Zealand who posts a lot of photos and tells a good tale. I bet it won't be long before everyone's linked up to him! :)

ICU 101 is the account of an RN who is just starting a residency in the ICU. You can hear the emotion involved in a change like that come right out in her posts. It's the same feeling as your first day of nursing school, or your first day at clinical, or your first day as a 'real' RN... it's that beginning time, where a person wonders if they'll ever be good enough. There's just SO MUCH to learn.

Tales of an RN Up North is really interesting. Tara Lee is a flight nurse way up in Cambridge Bay, Nuvunat. DANG it is cold up there. Right now her blog says the temp is -16c! She's got some pics of them de-icing the plane and snow all around. Wow, now thats what I call adventure. She crochets in her spare time, so you readers that love yarn should appreciate that. It must be much more difficult with 30 pounds of warm weather gear on! One of her co-workers, Pat, also has a blog. Pat wrote a fiction novel called Shock Trauma (Link to the book at Amazon) and is a champion Luge racer. Pat's blog is called (fittingly) Shock Trauma. She's just getting started with blogging, but it looks as if her book has quite a following! I'm gonna have to order one.

Meelo writes So Close to Heaven. She's just finishing up nursing school. Fletcher is her exhibitionist candle-sniffing cat. ;)

Ghetto Nursing is a sort of different blog. I think the point of view of being a shiny-new nurse in a ghetto hospital is interesting. Her observations about the us-vs-them mentality of nursing school are spot on too. She doesn't have a profile, so we don't get to know too much about her, and there are no comments, so she won't know she's listed here. Ah well.

Where's My Towel should have had a link a long time ago. My list of things to do is oh-so-long. Ruth is a student nurse in Canada and also a gamer and talks about her passion for Dungeons and Dragons. Comments are off on this one also.

Birdie blogs at A Fledgling Nurse. She's a third-year nursing student from Berkeley California doing her psych rotation now. Psych can be difficult. I also wanted to help everyone - as long as they were the friendly ones.

Creepy Nurse is a guy trying to make it through nursing school. He's either working or volunteering in an ER. Not quite sure.

Comic Nurse doesn't talk much about her nursing life, but she's been doing a good job lately of promoting her art! She has a calendar, and sold several pieces at a recent show. Check it out.

I'm not going to make a permanent link to this because it's so out of date, but Practice Doctorate had an interesting discussion on the Practice Doctorate in Nursing (where nurses could become something like an MD). I don't quite understand it, but thats only because I haven't followed the links and done the reading. It's an interesting idea and I'll probably read it when I get a chance. I wonder how the project is going now?

I won't get a day off until Monday, so I'll post the new links then. There are a bunch of them! :)

Vote!

Thanks to all who contributed nominations for NurseBlog for October. Two of them are blogs I haven't even put up yet - cool! I have found quite a few more blogs and had some more emailed to me, so tomorrow when I have the day off I'll do one of those posts and put up a big pile of new links.

Here are your choices:
Jodi at Coffee and Conversation in a Smoky Room
Geena at Codeblog: Tales of a Nurse
Genderist at Haiku of the Id
Kim at Emergiblog

Whoops, ok now I've just figured this out - I went to link up to Third Degree Nurse and saw she doesn't have a NurseBlogs logo either. I guess this isn't going to work out the way I would have liked it to, so I'll just change the rules again. I'll add the nominations people have already made and we can vote on them all. Blogs can only win once every 12 months, to give everyone a chance. Also, blogs nominated for October who don't win are automatically nominated for next month (as long as they are still being updated).

Here are the other nominations from this month:
Third Degree Nurse
Jo at Head Nurse
Mia at Death Maiden

And, yes, I'm planning on doing this every month as long as you guys show interest. You can only vote ONCE, but you can pick multiple choices to add interest (for those of you outside of America, we're sort of used to messed-up voting systems anyway...). In the end, it will all work out. :)

Who is October's NurseBlogger of the Month?
	Coffee and Conversation
	CodeBlog
	Haiku of the Id
	Emergiblog
	Third Degree Nurse
	Head Nurse
	Death Maiden
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