Medical Training

Have you heard about first lady Michelle Obama’s campaign Let’s Move to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation?  The Let’s Move website states, “…only a third of high school students get the recommended levels of physical activity.” According to the Centers for Disease and Prevention, “Aerobic activity should make up most of your child’s 60 or more minutes of physical activity each day. This can include either moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as brisk walking, or vigorous-intensity activity, such as running [at least 3 times per week].”  One of the ways to make exercise a part of your life at any age is to sign up for the Active Lifestyle Program.

This program site is located at www.presidentschallenge.org and is a part of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN). The PCFSN’s mission is to engage, educate and empower all Americans across the lifespan to adopt a healthy lifestyle that includes both regular physical activity and good nutrition.  The Active Lifestyle Program can be a helpful tool for nurses, especially since the LVN / LPN already assists with setting realistic goals and encouraging fitness in their patient’s lifestyle plan.

Nursing students learn about the importance of movement at any age, including the curriculum taught in LPN programs.  Nursing schools, such as a LPN school addresses the concerns for physical movement with their patients to facilitate the body to heal and prevent further complications, such as blood clots and respiratory infections.  Check out www.letsmove.gov for more information about the importance of exercise and how to promote exercise toward a healthier life.

The “dummy” is not so dumb when it is a high-fidelity simulator equipped with computer simulations and can respond as if it were a real patient.  As technology advances, so do clinical opportunities for students at Gurnick Academy of Medical Arts VN Program.  High-fidelity simulators include life-like and life-size mannequins that can be programmed to be both interactive and responsive to the student nurse’s care.  Simulated clinical scenarios provide not only a safe setting to teach students in  LVN / LPN schools how to perform different nursing tasks, but, surprisingly, are stimulating much more than critical thinking skills. Leighsa Sahroff, EdD, RN, NPP is the Coordinator of Simulation at Hunter College School of Nursing, City University of New York.  During a presentation entitled High Fidelity Simulators and Holistic Nursing Communication: 21st Century Technology meets Holistic Nursing Concepts, Sahroff offered examples of the unexpected lessons that student nurses are gleaning from the high-fidelity simulation process.

Instead of student nurses witnessing their first death experience in the hospital, they are afforded the opportunity to process their emotions within the simulation lab.  At times, there is so much happening at a real clinical site that the student misses certain cues, especially communication cues that are vital in both preventative care and in developing the nurse/patient caring-relationship.  The advantage of learning from simulated scenarios in an LPN program is that they can be repeated, video-taped, and slowed down to foster processing and awareness.

The learning possibilities are vast, especially in areas that stimulate student emotions around labor/delivery, fetal demise, pediatric illness, heart attack, seizure, anaphylactic shock, and psychiatric illness. By allowing students the freedom to make mistakes within the four walls of their school, where the simulated patient can recover from anything by the flip of a switch,  students can learn how do deal with real-life situations and, at the same time, explore their own strengths and weaknesses without any harm to a real patient.n

While attending and celebrating the 30th American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA) annual conference with 500 nurses, we also acknowledged both the International Year of the Nurse and the Centennial of Florence Nightingale’s death.  The setting for this momentous occasion was in Colorado Springs, Colorado, which offered views of both flat land to the east and rugged mountains to the west.  This approprié location enhanced the messages from our keynote speakers, Jean Watson, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN and Janet Quinn, PhD, RN, FAAN as they increased our awareness of how far nurses have come since Nightingale’s influence on nursing.

This year with the coming together of nurses, whether they are a LVN, LPN or RN, we have the support to emerge forward in our profession.  Quinn displayed the stages of the butterfly metamorphosis to depict the stages of our nursing profession.  For years nursing programs, including LVN and LPN programs facilitate the transformation from nursing student to nurse.  Today the veteran-nurses, as well as the new-graduate nurses, are encouraged to transform from the struggle of a 100-year chrysalis stage to unite as emerging butterflies.  Janet used the analogy of butterflies to symbolize nurses, and gardens to symbolize hospitals that support the nurse.

Quinn suggests that instead of buying or transporting more nurses to fill nursing positions in hospitals, build healing habitats within a hospital, similar to building a garden to attract and sustain the life of butterflies.  This is an exciting time to be a nurse, and especially for those entering RN, LVN, or LPN schools to become a part of this year’s AHNA conference theme, “Re-Visioning Environment: Creating a Habitat for Healing.”For more information about the AHNA conference refer to www.ahna.org

Nursing jobs relate to patient care in many ways, including care for people who are disabled, convalescent, sick or injured.LPN’s, like all nurses, work with patients who may be anxious, so an effective nurse usually has an empathetic , caring attitude.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an LPN needs to have an even temperament so that he or she can stay calm in stressful situations.  In addition, LPN’s must be observant and have strong communication and decision making skills.If you are considering a career in nursing, but you wish you could be working right now?  Training to be a licensed practical nurse is the closest you can get and still be a nurse.  Most LPN training programs take 1 to 2 years to complete.   After that, you take a national licensing exam and get a license in your state.  You are then ready to get a job as a real nurse.

LPN’s are the most hands on nurses.  They work closely with patients, implementing plans the doctors and registered nurses have made.  LPN’s carry out orders, but will also watch their patients closely, and write down and report everything about their patients condition.  It is the is the licensed practical nurse who bathes the patient, changes their surgical dressings, help thme to the bathroom, and help feed them if needed, as well as making sure oxygen therapy is working and intravenous lines are running.  They have been called “angels in confortable shoes.”