Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Advanced Directives

Whatever your opinion on the tragic Schiavo case, it is easy to see how having a clear indication of what Terri's wishes were would have helped all of her loved ones.

So, here are some links on Advanced Directives (Living Will, Health Care Proxy, etc.) Here is some information on Patient Rights in New York State. This also includes the appropriate forms.

Life! Wow!

Boy is it busy! I so look forward to just a few moments to just sit and think about... nothing, nothing is good sometimes. Is it me? Am I just disorganized? I mean, my other friends have kids and all kinds of other things going on and they seem to manage fine. Oh well. Just keep trying, I guess. So anyway, I had this nice blog typed up with links and everything and then my browser crashed. "Save as draft" is looking a lot better to me now. I am also going to try to put some more useful stuff out here as I learn about nursing.

I went to a great one-day conference on March 19th sponsored by the Nursing Student's Association of New York State (NSANYS). It was really, really well done. The keynote speaker, Donna Cardillo, was very inspiring as she presented the new opportunities in the nursing profession. She was funny and entertaining; a very good thing at 9:00 AM on a Saturday. Check out the articles on her website! It is loaded with excellent advice!

There were a variety of great presentations available. I went to one on "Advancing the Profession". This session introduced some of the initiatives under way in nursing levels of education such as making the baccealaurate degree the minimum standard for RN's and the Clinical Practice Doctorate for Advanced Practice nurses.

The next session that I attended was the "Scoop on Scope" presentation on scope of practice. This was a hightly informative session. Scope of practice defines what you legally may and may not do for a person in your care, what constitutes unprofessional conduct, etc. Essential information for any nurse, new to the field or experienced.

The day was nicely concluded by a NCLEX Review strategy session presented by KAPLAN.

I would highly recommend this conference to any NY state nursing student.

By the way, NSANYS is a constituent of the national organisation, National Student Nurses Association, NSNA. Membership costs $30 and is worth every penny. First you get their magazine Imprint. You can also get the American Journal of Nursing and Nursing 2005 for $20 each. These are great magazines. You can also get greatly discounted professional liability insurance.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Spring Break

I can blog again (for a few days anyway)! Will be back to write more later!