February 4, 2012

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Maximizing Your Medical Career Opportunities

September 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Preparing for careers in medicine can begin when you are in high school, but it can also begin years later after college. Whenever a person decides to pursue their medical career opportunities, there are several things they can do to maximize their potential.

Take Science-Related Classes
When applying for medical school, it is important to have a full body of coursework related to courses in science. These classes should include chemistry, biology, physics and even math. While there is no list of particular classes to consider, this type of classes will increase the likelihood of being accepted to the medical school of your choice. You can check with potential medical schools to see what classes and requirements there are in order to be accepted into the premedical program of study.

Find Volunteer Opportunities in the Medical Field
Medical schools are most interested in applicants who have a passion for the medical field. When you volunteer for research opportunities in the medical field or volunteer your time and skills in some other way, it will give your medical school application an edge on the competition. Some ideas for volunteer opportunities include working in a nursing home or offering your time at a community clinic.

Decide on a Field of Study
Some of the most successful people in the medical field have a specialized field of study. Whether you want to specialize in cardiology, podiatry, gynecology or any other field, you can start reading medical journals related to that field as early as possible to learn more about it.

Entering into the medical field is a commendable decision that should not be taken lightly. If you decide to pursue one of these careers, be prepared for hard work and a fulfilling career.

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Covering Your Family’s Medical Needs

September 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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Financially covering your family’s medical needs can be worrisome, especially if you don’t have insurance. When you or your kids need medical attention or prescription medication, have a plan.

With prescription medication, buy from a pharmacy that has a discount program. Many major retailers, grocery store chains and even drug stores are extending discounted medication to customers. You may have to pay a minimal annual fee, but you get that money back with your first prescription purchase.

Ask to see a list of the medications covered by the discount program and if yours are on the list, go for it.

Emergency rooms are often the first places people turn to when they need medical attention in a hurry. If the medical need is not life threatening, however, consider taking the family to a local walk-in clinic. These facilities provide basic services and they offer them at affordable rates. They do accept most insurance but many uninsured families use them as primary health care givers simply because there is no other option.

Work out a repayment plan with the hospital or negotiate a discounted lump sum payment. There may be other options available to you, so ask what your alternatives are. For smaller medical bills that cost one or two thousand dollars, consider taking out a cash advance to cover the cost.

When the situation calls for an emergency room visit, don’t think twice about it. Get the care your family needs first and think about the costs later. If you’re worried about being uninsured and racking up thousands of dollars in medical bills, talk to a hospital administrator or social worker about taking advantage of charitable donations. Most major hospitals have charity programs—they just don’t advertise them.

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Laws on Nursing Home Injuries

August 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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Nursing Home Injuries

Sadly there has been a rise in nursing home and assisted living facility injuries. These injuries are very frightening not only for the patient involved but their family members and loved ones as well. Here is a guide to some laws on nursing home injuries:

Understanding a Patient’s Rights

Most patients and their family members do not know the full extent of their rights or what each patient’s entitlements are. Back in the late 1980′s, special laws were passed that guarantee each patient in a nursing home is to receive the utmost quality in care. This does not just apply to their physical care, but their emotional and psychological care as well. In addition to these rights, patients are expected to have a good quality of life. Failure to meet any of these requirements is neglect and may result in injury to the patient.

Knowing the Difference: Accident or Abuse

If a patient is injured, loved ones and family members need to know the difference between a true accident and abuse. While accidents do happen, unfortunately abuse is found in many nursing homes, especially in homes where there are not have enough staff and where patients do not receive regular visitors. Friends and family members should pay extra attention if the patient has extra bruises, complains of different pains, becomes withdrawn or refuses to accept visitors. In these cases, seek legal help immediately. Contacting a reputable Riverside personal injury attorney to see what needs to be done ensures they will get the proper care they deserve.

Filed Under: Hospitals/Clinics Tagged With: , ,

What’s Contributing to the Nursing Shortage?

July 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The American student nurse Miss Lydia Monroe o...

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The United States is in an incredibly dangerous nursing shortage, leaving hospitals understaffed and overworked. The lack of willing and able American nurses forces hospitals to leave many former nursing duties to lower-paid, less-trained individuals. Unfortunately, a lack of training has a direct correlation to patient illness, infection, and mortality rates. Our patients need trained nurses, and they need them now.

If we’ve been recognizing the huge nursing shortage for years, why are we still in the shortage?  What’s causing this nursing crisis, anyway? Unfortunately, the answer is varied– and not easily solvable.

Leading Causes of the Nursing Shortage

  1. Education issues. There’s certainly no shortage of nursing school applicants in the United States. However, most nursing schools don’t have the space or faculty to accept more students. Nurses rarely go into teaching because those who teach earn a lower salary than their practicing counterparts. In addition, nursing faculty are paid less than faculty in other college disciplines. There’s a woeful lack of funding for American nursing education funding.
  2. An aging and growing population. People will always get sick. When we have more people on the planet, we have more patients in our hospitals. Likewise, the elderly have more medical needs than younger patients, which means even more patients swarming a medical system already operating at max capacity.
  3. Burnout. We have an overwhelming amount of nurses in the country who aren’t practicing due to burnout. Nurses are overworked and underpaid; they’re being stretched too thin. Registered nurses often quit when they feel disrespected or underappreciated– or when they see dangerous practices in hospitals caused by nurse understaffing.
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Filed Under: Careers, Medical Needs Tagged With: , ,

Are There Residencies for Nurses?

July 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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The United States is currently undergoing a nursing shortage crisis. Hospitals are bleeding nurses faster than the country can train them. Unfortunately, many nurses quit within 12 months of being hired after graduation. How can we keep our nurses in our hospitals?

The obvious answers are better pay and better working conditions. Nurses are overstretched; they’re asked to care for too many patients for too many hours. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a massive medical system wake-up to change nursing education, salaries, and working condition. So what can we do now?

Many professionals are arguing for nursing residencies similar to physician residencies– and several hospitals have implemented residencies to huge success.

How Does a Standard Residency Work?

Upon graduation of medical school, nearly all doctors choose to undergo years of post-graduate study. These post-graduate programs are called residencies.

Residencies act like “buffers” between medical school and standard life as a doctor. There’s a lot to get used to– and since trained and skilled doctors are such a valuable resource to our medical system, residency programs were developed to gradually introduce doctors to the system. We can’t afford to lose doctors to burnout or mistreatment– however, those are the exact reason we’re losing our trained nurses.

Nursing Residencies

Nurses are paired up and supervised with more experienced nurses. Instead of being held 100% accountable for their patients, they gradually enter the life of a full-time nurse. Responsibility gradually shifts over to the nurse throughout the program. Hospitals that have implemented this program for new nurses experience a stronger community among nurses and much lower turnover rates.

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Filed Under: Careers, Hospitals/Clinics Tagged With: , ,

How Do I Become a Midwife?

July 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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What is a Midwife?

A midwife is a professional natural birth specialist. She aims to guide a woman through a low-risk pregnancy, whether that means providing gynecological exams, performing family planning, providing primary care, or advising on pregnancy health issues. However, midwives are best known for helping a woman achieve natural birth.

What is a Nurse-Midwife?

A nurse midwife is someone who receives training in both nursing and the practice of midwifery. They may prescribe medications or deliver children in any state. However, high-risk pregnancies should be delivered in a hospital setting; in these cases, a nurse-midwife will direct their patients to a hospital obstetrician. To become a midwife, a woman must undergo specialized training.

What is a Direct-Entry Midwife?

A direct-entry midwife is someone who enters the midwife profession without any prior nursing education. Various training methods for direct-entry midwives abound. A midwife could be self-taught, apprenticed to another midwife, trained through a university, or schooled in a specific school of midwifery.

Different Midwifery Titles

Nurse-midwifes will generally go by their nursing title (nurse practitioner, R.N., etc.). However, direct-entry midwives may be any of these titles:

  • Certified Professional Midwife, or CPM. These professionals meet the certification standards of NARM (North American Registry of Midwives). What makes a CPM unique is that Certified Professional Midwives have training in out-of-hospital births.
  • Licensed Midwives are registered to practice in one particular state.
  • Lay Midwives are those taught by methods like self-teaching or an apprenticeship.

Unique to the American College of Nurse-Midwives, or ACNM, is a degree called Certified Midwife– though the degree is only currently accepted in New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. A Certified Midwife must be certified through the same exam as a CPM.

 

 

 

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