DID YOU KNOW… The majority of Life Care Planners are nurses in independent practice. Nurses typically choose nurse life care planning as a career enhancement. Nurse Life Care Planners earn an average of $150/hour. Studies show several Nurse Life Care Planners will retire within the next 5-10 years, which leaves the door wide open for opportunities…Are you ready?

FIG is a nationally recognized educational provider and announces the launching of Nurse Life Care Planning – Through the Ages, an educational course for nurses with an interest in life care planning. This course has been approved by the North Carolina Nurses Association for 120 contact hours and prepares you for certification in the field of life care planning.

FIG education focuses on critical thinking skills, current resources/references, today’s technology in the learning environment, hands-on approach and retention, professional yet relaxed atmosphere, and mentorship to promote confidence. FIG’s goal is to equip you with real knowledge that results in a positive, healthy benefit for your clients and your career.

Please visit FIG’s website (FIGservices.com) to learn more about our educational courses. We also offer courses in Medicare Set-Asides. Please sign up on the website for FIG’s newsletter (In The Know).

Pass this announcement to friends/colleagues and share the good news.

Do something healthy for your career – contact FIG to expand your knowledge, marketability, and income. Think of FIG as healthcare for your career.

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DID YOU KNOW… The majority of Life Care Planners are nurses in independent practice. Nurses typically choose nurse life care planning as a career enhancement. Studies show several Nurse Life Care Planners will retire within the next 5-10 years, which leaves the door wide open for opportunities…Are you ready?

My friend and colleague, Shelene Giles, is the President and Founder of FIG Services.  I have attended numerous educational events with Shelene and she is an excellent presenter and has a heart for nursing education. Her company, FIG Services, is a nationally recognized educational provider and is announcing the launching of Nurse Life Care Planning – Through the Ages, an educational course for nurses with an interest in life care planning. This course has been approved by the North Carolina Nurses Association for 120 contact hours and prepares you for certification in the field of life care planning.

FIG education focuses on critical thinking skills, current resources/references, today’s technology in the learning environment, hands-on approach and retention, professional yet relaxed atmosphere, and mentorship to promote confidence. FIG’s goal is to equip you with real knowledge that results in a positive, healthy benefit for your clients and your career.

Please visit FIG’s website to learn more about the educational courses. They also offer courses in Medicare Set-Aside allocations.  You can also sign up for FIG’s newsletter “In The Know”.

Do something healthy for your career – contact FIG to expand your knowledge, marketability, and income. Think of FIG as healthcare for your career.

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For the 11th year, nurses were voted the most trusted profession in America in Gallup’s annual survey that ranks professions for their honesty and ethical standards. Eighty-one percent of Americans believe nurses’ honesty and ethical standards are either “high” or “very high.” Since being included in the Gallup poll in 1999, nurses have received the highest ranking every year except in 2001, when fire fighters received top honors.

I am proud to be in this top spot.  It is our duties as nurses to remain a trusted professional by maintaining honesty, our ethical standards, and providing patient care with the patient in mind FIRST.

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A Forensic Nurse is one that has specialized training in forensic evidence collection, criminal procedures, and/or legal testimony expertise.  The Forensic nurse is the liaison between the medical profession and the legal system.  Forensic nursing may be the last frontier for nurses interested in working independent of hospital control and in increasing their income.

The University of Florida has a program that is intended to introduce nurses to the forensic aspects of health care, criminal justice, law enforcement, and public service.  Forensic nurses work closely with law enforcement at crime scenes by collecting evidence and assisting in the process of forensic analysis.  Nurses trained in forensic science also specialize in treating victims of assault, accidents, and other violent abuse.

The University of Florida is offering one free Forensic Science for Nurses on-line course (a $450 value) to each student registered for the two-day on-site course Forensics and the Court System: Principles and Practices for Nurse Consultants, held in Orlando, Florida, on November 4 and 5, 2010. Register for the on-site course #5 by following this link: http://fsn.dce.ufl.edu/course5.shtml. Seats are limited.

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As many of you may know, I was recently added to the adjunct faculty at the University of Florida Forensic Science for Nurses Certificate Program.  The program coordinator, Pat Bemis, requested that our director at the University of Florida provide special pricing for the upcoming on site course in Orlando.  He agreed!

The University of Florida is offering one FREE Forensic Science for Nurses on-line course (a $450 value!) to each student registered for the two day on-site course entitled Forensics and the Court System:  Principles and Practices for Nurse Consultants.  It will be held in Orlando, Florida on November 4th and 5th.

You can register for this on-site course (#5 at the boom of the registration page) by clicking here.  Seats are limited so don’t miss out on this course or else you will lose out on your free class too!

A special link will be given to each student attending the two-day on-site course.  This link will allow the student to register for any one of the four $450.00 online courses in the Forensics for Nurses Certificate Program for FREE!  The student will also be eligible for 20 nursing continuing education course at the successful completion of the online course.  The student will be given a certificate from the University of Florida on completion of the four online courses that make up the certificate program.

I hope you will take advantage of this incredible offer for maximum savings.  For additional questions about the program, contact Patricia Bemis, Program Coordinator, at pbemis@ufl.edu or (321) 633-4610.  I’ll see you at the on-site course next month!

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Nurses Week is celebrated each year from May 6^th til May 12^th, which is the birthday date of Florence Nightingale.

We all know that nursing today is nothing like it was 100 years ago, right?  Just for fun, there is a link to a graduating class from 1910 .  The truth is, I did start this post thinking about how incredibly different the profession is compared to 100 years ago.  Of course, it has been a little while since I took “History of Nursing 101”.  Plus, I had a bit different perspective back then.

When I was doing a little research to write this, it struck me as an older, wiser head now, that while things indeed have changed radically, with technology, education, new opportunities in the field and more, there are many aspects to nursing that really haven’t changed much at all.

If you go to the link http://www.nurseweek.com/features/99-12/workhist.html and read the article, there is a certain sense of how things never change so much as they stay the same.

Here are some items I thought bear reflection:

• No antibiotics, so nurses were in near constant danger of contracting a serious infection from their patients and environment.

• Long hours, tough jobs

• What we call home health care today was huge “back in the day” and called private duty nursing

• You had to love hard work to enjoy being a nurse

• Attention to detail and follow up was a big part of the nurses’ role

• Scientific knowledge (as far as it went) was a requirement

• Knowledge and practice of good hygiene was paramount

• Compassion, empathy and a commitment to service was part of the nurse’s stock in trade

When you look at today’s environment:

• Home health care is back on the rise due to “new” models in medicine

• We do have treatments for the infectious diseases that our foremothers (and fathers) didn’t have, but today we face other, difficult to treat infections, such as MRSA and C-Diff

• You still gotta love the job, at the end of the day!

• Scientific training and education is still the backbone of nursing education

• Hygiene, infection control are still vital

• Long hours, tough jobs

• Compassion, empathy and a commitment to service remain some of the primary characteristics of today’s nurse

So, while we have “come a long way, baby”, our core values as nursing professionals remain the same.  And that’s a good thing!  Here’s to you…Happy Nurse’s Week!

How Nursing was in the 1900′s

Basic information about Nurse’s Week for 2010

Nursing World Organization

May 19, 2010 at 8:00 PM Eastern – One hour webinar
An Eye for an Eye: The Legal Consequences of Vision Loss
Joseph Citron, MD Esq.

A uniquely qualified presenter, Dr. Joe Citron is both an ophthalmologist and an attorney. He explains the mystery of how we see and what goes wrong when the visual system is injured. Loss of vision can have profound effects on a plaintiff, affecting vocational, social, and psychological issues. Dr. Citron pulls back the covers to share his knowledge. Eyes, vision and injuries have long been the province of a few specially trained medical people. No more! He’ll use common English and a minimum of medical terms to explain how people see. He’ll help you understand the connections between the eyes and the brain as well as the methods used for testing these areas. What’s the eye case worth? Dr. Citron will help you determine the value of eye injuries.

June 29, 2010 at 8:00 PM Eastern – One hour webinar
Nutrition: Was Malnutrition the Culprit? Janet McKee, MS RD CSG LD/N DAPWCA

Forty to eighty five percent of patients and nursing home residents experience protein-calorie malnutrition, which promotes involuntary weight loss, pressure wound development, poor wound healing and other negative patient or resident outcomes.   Because malnutrition and many of its unintended consequences can often be prevented, appropriate recognition and management of malnutrition or the risk for malnutrition is of primary importance in assessing the status of patients and residents. An evaluation of the nutritional assessment, care planning, interventions and monitoring should be completed for each case involving malnutrition, weight loss or pressure wounds. A nutritional expert exposes the practices that lead to malnutrition. This interactive webinar provides the knowledge to determine when nutrition is a key issue in case evaluations and screening a claim for merit.

Wanna join in on one of these webinars?  Go here: http://www.webmarketingmagic.com/app/?af=1059614

A critical aspect of any catastrophic injury lawsuit involves the determination of the injured party’s future medical care. The life care plan is a tool that is written by a professional and often used to specifically identify all of the future care (medical and non-medical) needs of the injured party. The life care plan addresses the costs and frequency of the needed goods and services over a lifetime. It will project the needed equipment, replacement scheduled and maintenance.

In many cases attendant care is needed. The plan will determine how many hours per day care is anticipated and what level of individual is needed to provide the care. Some care may be provided by unskilled labor while other care requires expertise of a licensed individual. Still other care could be calculated to provide respite for the family care givers.

Another large area in injury cases (and particularly those cases which involve children) are the calculations the therapy needs. Therapy needs may consist of physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and recreational therapy and may last a lifetime.

A life care plan will also address the number of physician visits required throughout the injured party’s life, any adaptive equipment he or she may require in and around the home, home modifications, transportation needs, diagnostic testing, and often much more. It is common for the nurse life care planner to meet with the injured party’s family in their home to assess the extent of the needs. The plan is a collaborative effort that involves the life care planner as well as the multiple medical professionals involved in the medical care.

Nurses are well suited to this field of life care planning. Beginning in nursing school, nurses learned how to develop a nursing care plan. This same nursing care plan is the essence of Nurse Life Care Planning. The Nurse Life Care Planner initiates the nursing process with a nursing assessment and using a holistic approach to encompass the client, their support system, their environment, and their individual needs related to the injury or illness.

The nursing assessment is based on collecting subjective and objective data from observations, examinations, interviews and written records. The data may include symptoms, growth and development, family health history, information collected by other health team members, culture and religion, ability to perform activities of daily living, educational and vocational background, patterns of coping and interacting, and environmental factors. The Nurse Life Care Plan is intended to follow the client through his or her lifetime to ensure funds will be available to properly care for the client.

Nurse Life Care Planning is an extension of case management where the nurse has learned to perform an assessment, formulate a plan of care in collaboration with the health care team, facilitate medical needs and negotiate costs related to care. Other specialties of nursing that are also well suited to this area include rehabilitation, discharge planning, utilization review nurses and even home health nurses.

The American Association of Nurse Life Care Planners (AANLCP) was established to promote a professional practice within nurse life care planning. To learn more about this exciting field of nursing, I encourage you to contact the association and consider becoming a member.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a division of the U.S. Dept. of Labor, has projected, that from 2008 to 2018 the civilian labor force will grow by 12.6 million and total employment will increase by approximately 15.3 million jobs. Health care and social assistance will add approximately 4 million positions, with 772,200 of these in physician offices. About 106,500 of these new jobs will be for registered nurses.

High demand is expected in specialties such as geriatrics and orthopedic surgery, that provide treatment for age-related conditions.  The only position in a physician’s office not expected to increase is file clerk, primarily because electronic medical records are becoming more common.

One survey, released Nov. 16, 2009, by AMN Healthcare Services Inc., in partnership with the National Council on Physician and Nurse Supply, found that nearly all hospital CEOs believed there was a shortage of physicians, nurses and allied health professionals. About 6% of nursing jobs went unfilled, as did 5% of jobs for allied health professionals.

My daughter is headed to college with plans to become a registered nurse.  It isn’t what she dreamed of as a child.  She prefers veterinary medicine and she is really great with the four legged patients.  After looking at the time and money investment required for veterinary school and the difficulties in making a decent living, she has determined that people medicine might be a better fit for her and her family.  I tend to agree.  It has suited me well and I wish her the best.

I love you Lacy!

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This year marks the centennial year of Florence Nightingale‘s death.  Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) is the founder of modern nursing.  Her contributions to nursing theory, education, practice, research, statistics, public health, and healthcare reform are foundational and inspirational and allow me to do what I do today.  She was a health care advocate to influenced leaders of her time.  She impacted public awareness and changed how people understood and valued health.

Not only was Florence Nightingale a patient advocate, she was also an advocate for nurses and nursing.  She asked that we continually be renewed to sustain our effective, compassionate, and caring practices (something I need to do more of).

This year a grassroots organization has come to honor nurses, our values and wisdom, and to act as catalysts for achieving a healthy world.  There are estimated to be more than 15 million of us.

International Year of the Nurse, has set out 8 goals.

1.  Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. Achieve universal primary education

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

4. Reduce child mortality

5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV, AIDS, malaria, and all communicable/noncommunicable diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership for development

To learn more go to 2010iynurse.net