Vote~ Kids are Dying~ Faces of The Choking Game

Every child seen here (and thousands more) DIED from 'playing' a 'game', many died within minutes!! Please TAKE A MINUTE and SAVE FUTURE Kids from the same fate. We need to win $10K in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Grant Challenge to hold a National Conference to Educate on the Dangers of the Choking Game.

Please join us in Saving lives - we need your votes and texts! With only days left - we are extremely close to winning to grant - but we desperately need more votes to get there. YOUR Vote or Text could make the $10K difference and the difference in the life of a child!!

Every person with a cell phone and/or email and/or Facebook can place 1 Text and 2 online votes: one vote signing in with Facebook, the second signing in with Pepsi.

TEXT 109321 (message) to 73774 (recipient)
Also Vote using your Mobile or PC:
online link: http://www.refresheverything.com/chokinggame
mobile link: http://m.refresheverything.com/Idea/19586

US residents aged 13 and older are eligible to cast votes and text!

More information and education also available www.Ed4Ed4all.com 

A Nurse is an Artist with a Canvas of Caring

Inspirational quotes 

that nurses can count on to lift those spirits: 

Nurses need a little lift everyday and I hope these inspiring little messages help to paint some sunshine on your canvas today.

“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.”

– Dag Hammarskjold, Diplomat

“To do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do, in spite of all we go through; that is to be a nurse.”

– Rawsi Williams, BSN, RN

“The trained nurse has become one of the great blessings of humanity, taking a place beside the physician and the priest.”

– William Osler, MD

“Panic plays no part in the training of a nurse.”

– Sister Elizabeth Kenny

“The most important practical lesson than can be given to nurses is to teach them what to observe.”

– Florence Nightingale

“Nurses may not be angels, but they are the next best thing.”

– Anonymous Patient

“Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription.”

– Val Saintsbury

N-urturing

U-nderstanding

R-eally great

S-uper smart

E-ager to work hard!

“Nursing encompasses an art, a humanistic orientation, a feeling for the value of the individual, and an intuitive sense of ethics, and of the appropriateness of action taken.”

– Myrtle Aydelotte, PhD, RN, FAAN

“Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.”

- Florence Nightingale

“Whether a person is a male or female, a nurse is a nurse.”

- Gary Veale, RN

“We often think of nursing as giving meds on time, checking an X-ray to see if the doctor needs to be called, or taking an admission at 2:00 a.m. with a smile on our faces. Too often, we forget all the other things that make our job what it truly is—caring and having a desire to make a difference.”

- Erin Pettengill, RN, quoted in RN Modern Medicine

“Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy… nurses are rarely short on caring.”

- Sharon Hudacek, RN

“Our job as nurses is to cushion the sorrow and celebrate the joy, everyday, while we are ‘just doing our jobs.’”

- Christine Belle, RN, BSN

 Have a wonderful weekend, this nurse is working her weekender duty in the ER, thank you to those of you that inspire me daily to keep doing what I do selflessly. 

Even after 32 years in healthcare I still enjoy taking care of patients and making them feel better.

Quotes found via the "Scrubs.com" website, sign up for their newsletter, its a good one. I enjoy my emails from them. 

Vintage nursing photos found all over the web, I love them. 

Little Known Danger In Your Household

Coin lithium button batteries can cause severe injuries when swallowed.

If you have spent anytime around young children you know that most things end
up in their.........mouth (or sometimes ears). So what is the big deal about swallowed objects? don't they just come out the "other end"? Depends, on the size,
the object itself and where it might get lodged.
Look at this Xray and tell me what you see:

Electronic devices are a part of daily life. And they’re getting smaller, slimmer and sleeker. But inside the battery compartment of mini remote controls, small calculators, watches, key fobs, flame-less candles, singing greeting cards and other electronics, may be a very powerful coin-sized button battery. When swallowed, these batteries can get stuck in the throat and cause severe burns. Small children often have easy access to these devices, and many parents do not know there is a risk.

Energizer is proud to be part of a new partnership addressing the safety issue of children swallowing coin-size button batteries. Swallowing a battery can cause serious health problems for your child. More than 3,400 lithium batteries were swallowed in 2010 and they can be found in many common household devices.

Learn more about lithium battery safety at http://www.thebatterycontrolled.com.


More important facts about battery safety Here 

Thank you to  Energizer and Safe Kids USA, for being committed to helping parents prevent children from swallowing coin-sized button batteries.

Please be aware of the dangers around your household, pay close attention to those little munchkins that have a fascination for all things, and keep them safe.

Take the pledge here
Secure your devices and get counted here 
Share this with your family and friends here  

Science of some designer drugs ~synthetics

The science of designer drugs: essential review October 8, 2011,  
★★★★☆ Clinical toxicology of newer recreational drugs. Hill SL, Thomas SHL Clin Toxicol 2011;49:705-719. Abstract

This essential article will probably be of most interest to chemical structure geeks (like me) and academics, but it is the best review I know that gets granular about the pharmacology of the many new designer drugs. The authors did a comprehensive review of published medical literature involving new designer drugs. (Synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cocaine , and GHB are not covered.)
They classify these drugs into four categories:
piperazines 
phenethylamines
tryptamines 
piperidines 

Piperazines are synthetic chemicals that do no exist in nature. Included in this group is BZP, a sympathomimetic stimulant with effects similar to those of amphetamine. BZP inhibits re-uptake of dopamine and norepinephrine.
Phenethylamines include amphetamine, methamphetamine, and MDMA (ecstasy). Other examples are the synthetic cathinone mephedrone, MDPV (commonly found in “bath salts”), bromodragonFLY, and the 2C series.
Phenethylamines are predominantly sympathomimetic stimulants, but can have varying degrees of psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties created by substitutions on the basic molecule.
Tryptamines are derived from the amino acid tryptophan. Examples include psilocybin, LSD and DMT (a component used by Ayahuasca shamans). Tryptamines are primarily hallucinogenic rather than entactogenic or stimulant.
Piperidines include desoxypipradrol (2-DPMP), a component of the designer drug “whack”. It has also been found recently in products sold as “Ivory Wave” bath salts. Piperidines are stimulants that can cause prolonged psychotic effects. This classification scheme is very helpful in thinking about designer drugs, but has limited clinical usefulness.
In fact, when dealing with a patient who has been acutely exposed to a designer drug, the clinician is never certain exactly what chemical or chemicals are involved. Street products can contain a mixture of ingredients. Therefore, there are few specific recommendations regarding medical management in this paper.

The authors’ approach can be summed up by their last sentence: The management of users with acute toxic effects is pragmatic and, in general, as for poisoning with longer established stimulant or hallucinogenic drugs such as amphetamines and MDMA. With 169 references through 2011, this article should be in the files of anyone with more than a passing interest in the science of designer drugs.

The key to these synthetic drugs is the that they are just that synthetics, and they are mixed with other ingredients often, so you have no idea what the heck you are getting. Make a choice.......and die , that sums it up pretty much, we have body bags in all sizes, just hate to tell your momma that you made a stupid choice ;(

Leslie RN ~ don't let me catch you in the ER not being safe ;)