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Arkansas Student Nurses Association Conference 2008
I want to write down a few things about the Arkansas Student Nurses Association conference before I forget them.
Some of you follow my Twitter, and were alarmed at my tweet that some people were laughing during the focus group on burns. It's not as bad as that sounds: the presenter made the point that burns as a rule are accidental and usually preventable. "For example," he said, "It is extremely unlikely that today you will sustain 3rd degree burns while wearing a banana suit." Then he clicked a button on his pointer and an image of a man in a banana suit and a friend carrying a bottle of lighter fluid, appeared. "Unless of course you wake up, put on a banana suit, and set yourself on fire." He clicked again, and the video began: friend douses BananaMan, lights him, and then BananaMan tries to stop drop & roll. Unfortunately, BananaMan has never had a class in fire science, because he did not understand that the fire was not likely to stay on the OUTSIDE of the banana suit. He had to strip it off because even though BananaFriend was hosing him down with an extinguisher, it wasn't putting out what was on the underside of the suit. Everyone was laughing, of course, because it's funny. Really it was kind of amusing watching this dude try frantically to get out of a banana suit. On fire. But when you've been in that hospital bed, and you know what it feels like to have those burns unwrapped every day and scrubbed and layers of burn peeled off and wrapped in a skin dissolving enzyme only to have it done all over again 24 hours later--all while being severely undermedicated because the nurses in charge of it don't have enough training to understand that 3rd degree burns may kill nerves, but they are usually surrounded by 2nd degrees which DON'T...yeah. It's not funny anymore. I just sat there sighing heavily and thinking what kind of a supreme, highest-degree moron it takes to do that. Then there was a video of an older gentleman using gasoline to set fire to a large pile of wooden debris. He used WAY TOO MUCH, but the problem wasn't that he was using too much. It was that he was using GASOLINE. Please, please, flist--understand that if you ever need to burn something you DON'T USE GASOLINE. It explodes. In this case it exploded spectacularly and everyone else in the class gasped and went "Whoa!" all impressed, but when the camera turned around and showed the field of burning debris, I was the only one who gasped "But where's the GUY?!" My perspective on that sort of thing is pretty dramatically altered from most.
I won't elaborate much on the baby with the burned feet. Perfect little sock-like immersion burn, 2nd degree. Submersion is the only possible way that burn could have happened, and I am at a loss to say how a child that small could've sustained it in ANY WAY other than intentional abuse. So yes. It is possible for me to be angry beyond all other feeling. My perspective might make me a very good nurse to the patients, but it would make me a very, very dangerous person to any perceived abuser. Possibly I should never be allowed in the room with them in the interest of my own continued lack of arrest record. And their personal safety.
I asked the presenter, who works in the burn unit at Arkansas Children's Hospital, if they hired new RNs without experience, and he said they do. I asked if being former 3rd degree burn victim & graft recipient helped my chances, and the response was "YES. YES. A thousand times yes," and he told me when I applied that I should put that on my resume or in the application. "Tell me your story when you apply," he said. I found that rather gratifying.
We had a focus group on sexual assault as well, and that was strictly angering as well. But it was also extremely informative: we got lots of information about how to certify as a SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner), and some interesting chain of responsibility, order of operations stuff that helps nurse examiners put rapists away.
One of our keynote speakers was an Army CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist, for those who don't speak the lingo). He showed slides of mobile surgical units and told stories about the circumstances under which he worked sometimes. Ever seen the anesthesia machine in an operating room? It's massive and complex. They don't even have one in those units sometimes. Why? Because the electricity is unreliable. He told stories of having to do total IV anesthesia (no gas) via DRIP RATE. That means no infusion pump to set the rate at the proper number of drops per minute, folks. That means putting someone under enough to allow surgery, but keeping them just this side of respiratory arrest. By counting the number of drops that fall in the IV tubing per minute. THIS IS WHY MATH IS IMPORTANT. o_O!!!
The hotel was very nice. We were in the Embassy Suites in Rogers, which is attached to the John Q. Hammons convention center. It was freaking expensive, yes, but the proximity to the convention hall was nice, and it can be considered $20 less per night because we all took advantage of the complimentary breakfast. It was a REAL breakfast, too, with a guy making omelettes, bacon & sausage, a selection of fruits, cereals, & pastries, decent coffee, a million juices, etc. It was really a lot like a breakfast spread you'd see at a buffet restaurant. Like Golden Corral, maybe. Anyway, it was good, and if you weren't staying there, it cost $20. So we figured that into the price. ^_^ It got on my good list because among the little individual boxes of cereal was Kashi Heart to Heart, my favorite cereal. Our rooms were nice: Meg, Amanda, & I all stayed comfortably in one (Meg took the sleeper sofa). Wireless was $10 per day, but the convention center had it free, so I took the hike (and even though the buildings were connected, it was pretty much a hike) over there in the evenings to do my homework. Sitting alone in a big convention center hallway with a laptop & a chai latte was kind of nice.
Oh! I have a Nice Thing™ to say about the IT staff at the convention center. A nice man in a black suit wandered by as I was trying to do my mental health homework. He asked what I was up to, and I told him I'd be looking up Clazoril & Depakote if I had the internet. I was connecting to the network, I explained, but no pages were pulling. I found the network but the network wasn't finding the intarwebz. I told him the tubes were clogged and he laughed like he "got" that joke, so I was pretty confident in his internet savvy. He told me to hang on a second and disappeared into the Grand Ballroom in front of me. A few minutes later his head popped back out. "Try it now," he said. I did, and I connected! He'd reset the router for me. Thanks, Convention Center IT Guy! (He was wearing my FAVORITE incarnation of Guy In Suit, too: black suit with a black shirt & a dark red tie!)
As we left Rogers on Friday after the keynote & exhibit hall visits, we found a gas station selling gas for $2.29. Cheapest we'd seen it, so we were excited & stopped for gas. When we went inside to get a drink, though...the gas station was an organic local market. I'm not kidding. The first thing you see when you walk in is a cheese case, and we're talking expensive cheese. o_O Whaaaaaaat? The coolers were stocked with Izze & Jones Soda. The candy bar aisle had Ritter Sports, Dagoba chocolate, and Newman's Own. There was a bakery case with strawberry topped chocolate eclairs, pumpkin roll slices, and spinach & feta croissants (I had one of the latter and WOW it was great). The emergency cleaning supplies section (where you might find bleach & drano & paper towels in a regular gas station) had Seventh Generation & Meyer's cleaning supplies. There was a butcher. Like walk in and ask for a specific cut of beef butcher. Did I mention this was a gas station? Meg had stayed in the car, but Brad & Amanda & I kept looking at each other like "Are we in the Twilight Zone?" I didn't mind. I got a blueberry Izze & a spinach croissant, and that will probably be the most awesome gas station snack I will ever have.
On the way home we ate at Feltner's Whataburger, which turned out to be a local place, not the chain. I was surprised; I'm told it's the original Whataburger. It was really pretty good. My burger was tasty, but it was the onion rings that really got me. I'm picky about my onion rings, but these were pretty amazing. Good shakes too, even though it was strawberry syrup & not real strawberries. I didn't know they had peanut butter, or I'd have gone for chocolate/peanut butter/banana.
It was a good conference. I had a good time and I learned a lot. There was one major drawback: I haven't seen my kid in days! So today I am playing hookie from pharm/patho, and instead will be spending a day with Ganon, gallivanting about town. We'll probably walk around the mall and play in the playground, and then get groceries before we come home. I like my days with The Overlord.
Some of you follow my Twitter, and were alarmed at my tweet that some people were laughing during the focus group on burns. It's not as bad as that sounds: the presenter made the point that burns as a rule are accidental and usually preventable. "For example," he said, "It is extremely unlikely that today you will sustain 3rd degree burns while wearing a banana suit." Then he clicked a button on his pointer and an image of a man in a banana suit and a friend carrying a bottle of lighter fluid, appeared. "Unless of course you wake up, put on a banana suit, and set yourself on fire." He clicked again, and the video began: friend douses BananaMan, lights him, and then BananaMan tries to stop drop & roll. Unfortunately, BananaMan has never had a class in fire science, because he did not understand that the fire was not likely to stay on the OUTSIDE of the banana suit. He had to strip it off because even though BananaFriend was hosing him down with an extinguisher, it wasn't putting out what was on the underside of the suit. Everyone was laughing, of course, because it's funny. Really it was kind of amusing watching this dude try frantically to get out of a banana suit. On fire. But when you've been in that hospital bed, and you know what it feels like to have those burns unwrapped every day and scrubbed and layers of burn peeled off and wrapped in a skin dissolving enzyme only to have it done all over again 24 hours later--all while being severely undermedicated because the nurses in charge of it don't have enough training to understand that 3rd degree burns may kill nerves, but they are usually surrounded by 2nd degrees which DON'T...yeah. It's not funny anymore. I just sat there sighing heavily and thinking what kind of a supreme, highest-degree moron it takes to do that. Then there was a video of an older gentleman using gasoline to set fire to a large pile of wooden debris. He used WAY TOO MUCH, but the problem wasn't that he was using too much. It was that he was using GASOLINE. Please, please, flist--understand that if you ever need to burn something you DON'T USE GASOLINE. It explodes. In this case it exploded spectacularly and everyone else in the class gasped and went "Whoa!" all impressed, but when the camera turned around and showed the field of burning debris, I was the only one who gasped "But where's the GUY?!" My perspective on that sort of thing is pretty dramatically altered from most.
I won't elaborate much on the baby with the burned feet. Perfect little sock-like immersion burn, 2nd degree. Submersion is the only possible way that burn could have happened, and I am at a loss to say how a child that small could've sustained it in ANY WAY other than intentional abuse. So yes. It is possible for me to be angry beyond all other feeling. My perspective might make me a very good nurse to the patients, but it would make me a very, very dangerous person to any perceived abuser. Possibly I should never be allowed in the room with them in the interest of my own continued lack of arrest record. And their personal safety.
I asked the presenter, who works in the burn unit at Arkansas Children's Hospital, if they hired new RNs without experience, and he said they do. I asked if being former 3rd degree burn victim & graft recipient helped my chances, and the response was "YES. YES. A thousand times yes," and he told me when I applied that I should put that on my resume or in the application. "Tell me your story when you apply," he said. I found that rather gratifying.
We had a focus group on sexual assault as well, and that was strictly angering as well. But it was also extremely informative: we got lots of information about how to certify as a SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner), and some interesting chain of responsibility, order of operations stuff that helps nurse examiners put rapists away.
One of our keynote speakers was an Army CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist, for those who don't speak the lingo). He showed slides of mobile surgical units and told stories about the circumstances under which he worked sometimes. Ever seen the anesthesia machine in an operating room? It's massive and complex. They don't even have one in those units sometimes. Why? Because the electricity is unreliable. He told stories of having to do total IV anesthesia (no gas) via DRIP RATE. That means no infusion pump to set the rate at the proper number of drops per minute, folks. That means putting someone under enough to allow surgery, but keeping them just this side of respiratory arrest. By counting the number of drops that fall in the IV tubing per minute. THIS IS WHY MATH IS IMPORTANT. o_O!!!
The hotel was very nice. We were in the Embassy Suites in Rogers, which is attached to the John Q. Hammons convention center. It was freaking expensive, yes, but the proximity to the convention hall was nice, and it can be considered $20 less per night because we all took advantage of the complimentary breakfast. It was a REAL breakfast, too, with a guy making omelettes, bacon & sausage, a selection of fruits, cereals, & pastries, decent coffee, a million juices, etc. It was really a lot like a breakfast spread you'd see at a buffet restaurant. Like Golden Corral, maybe. Anyway, it was good, and if you weren't staying there, it cost $20. So we figured that into the price. ^_^ It got on my good list because among the little individual boxes of cereal was Kashi Heart to Heart, my favorite cereal. Our rooms were nice: Meg, Amanda, & I all stayed comfortably in one (Meg took the sleeper sofa). Wireless was $10 per day, but the convention center had it free, so I took the hike (and even though the buildings were connected, it was pretty much a hike) over there in the evenings to do my homework. Sitting alone in a big convention center hallway with a laptop & a chai latte was kind of nice.
Oh! I have a Nice Thing™ to say about the IT staff at the convention center. A nice man in a black suit wandered by as I was trying to do my mental health homework. He asked what I was up to, and I told him I'd be looking up Clazoril & Depakote if I had the internet. I was connecting to the network, I explained, but no pages were pulling. I found the network but the network wasn't finding the intarwebz. I told him the tubes were clogged and he laughed like he "got" that joke, so I was pretty confident in his internet savvy. He told me to hang on a second and disappeared into the Grand Ballroom in front of me. A few minutes later his head popped back out. "Try it now," he said. I did, and I connected! He'd reset the router for me. Thanks, Convention Center IT Guy! (He was wearing my FAVORITE incarnation of Guy In Suit, too: black suit with a black shirt & a dark red tie!)
As we left Rogers on Friday after the keynote & exhibit hall visits, we found a gas station selling gas for $2.29. Cheapest we'd seen it, so we were excited & stopped for gas. When we went inside to get a drink, though...the gas station was an organic local market. I'm not kidding. The first thing you see when you walk in is a cheese case, and we're talking expensive cheese. o_O Whaaaaaaat? The coolers were stocked with Izze & Jones Soda. The candy bar aisle had Ritter Sports, Dagoba chocolate, and Newman's Own. There was a bakery case with strawberry topped chocolate eclairs, pumpkin roll slices, and spinach & feta croissants (I had one of the latter and WOW it was great). The emergency cleaning supplies section (where you might find bleach & drano & paper towels in a regular gas station) had Seventh Generation & Meyer's cleaning supplies. There was a butcher. Like walk in and ask for a specific cut of beef butcher. Did I mention this was a gas station? Meg had stayed in the car, but Brad & Amanda & I kept looking at each other like "Are we in the Twilight Zone?" I didn't mind. I got a blueberry Izze & a spinach croissant, and that will probably be the most awesome gas station snack I will ever have.
On the way home we ate at Feltner's Whataburger, which turned out to be a local place, not the chain. I was surprised; I'm told it's the original Whataburger. It was really pretty good. My burger was tasty, but it was the onion rings that really got me. I'm picky about my onion rings, but these were pretty amazing. Good shakes too, even though it was strawberry syrup & not real strawberries. I didn't know they had peanut butter, or I'd have gone for chocolate/peanut butter/banana.
It was a good conference. I had a good time and I learned a lot. There was one major drawback: I haven't seen my kid in days! So today I am playing hookie from pharm/patho, and instead will be spending a day with Ganon, gallivanting about town. We'll probably walk around the mall and play in the playground, and then get groceries before we come home. I like my days with The Overlord.
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