What I Wish I Knew: Potassium-K Lab Value Levels For resources to help you master Potassium and ALL the lab values, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at NURSING.com/labvalues.   What do bananas, avocados, and kale all have in common? Potassium! For more resources to help you understand Potassium, Hyperkalemia and Hypokalemia, click here: What role does it play in the body? What’s a normal range level for potassium? And what happens when potassium levels are too low or too high? On a shift early in my career, while I was still being oriented to the unit, I held tight to tha ..read more

For resources to help you master ABGs and ALL the LabVales, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at    NURSING.com/LabValues.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about ABGs including gas exchange, acidosis, alkalosis (metabolic and respiratory), normal lab value ranges, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX for arterial blood gases.     Our gas exchange nursing care plan covers impaired gas exchange nursing management, impaired gas exchange interventions, impaired gas exchange diagnosis, et ..read more

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about distributive shock including distributive shock pathophysiology, distributive shock definition, types of distributive shock, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX on distributive shock nursing.     Our distributive shock nursing care plan covers distributive shock nursing management, distributive shock interventions, distributive shock diagnosis ..read more

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about coronary artery disease including coronary artery disease pathophysiology, coronary artery disease symptoms, coronary artery disease treatment, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX on coronary artery disease nursing.     Our coronary artery disease nursing care plan covers coronary artery disease nursing management, coronary artery disease interventio ..read more

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about agina including: angina symptoms, anginal pharmacology, the difference between stable and unstable angina, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX for angina nursing.       Excerpt:    ". . . it wasn't my patient that I should have been worried about When my patient's son said he wasn't feeling right, it would have been easy to assume it was because ..read more

ICU Nurses- Voices for the Voiceless For more on cardiac care to help you in nursing school visit  NURSING.com/heart Roughly 1 out of every 3 patients in the Intensive Care Unit, on average, are unable to communicate. Because of this, the role of an ICU nurse stretches far beyond providing medical care alone, but also acting as an advocate, or a voice for the voiceless to ensure that these patient’s needs, rights, and wishes are heard, recognized and respected. In doing so, these warriors in scrubs essentially embody the very essence of healthcare: compassion, advocacy, and unwavering com ..read more

Ever notice why some students embrace challenges, while others shy away? Mindsets. Your mindset might just change how you approach your goals in nursing school…   A fixed mindset: abilities are set. A growth mindset: abilities develop. When challenges appear, your mindsets matter.   In nursing school, challenges are constant. A student with a fixed mindset avoids challenges. One with a growth mindset thrives when challenges arise.   Having a growth mindset is the secret sauce for success.  Putting effort into a fixed mindset is useless.  It's time to shift yo ..read more

For more Carditis and the heart just visit NURSING.com/heart.   Did you know that the average human heart beats 100,000 times a day, pumping 2,000 gallons of blood? Now, imagine if this vital pump was under threat from, pericarditis, myocarditis, or endocarditis and couldn’t pump effectively. In this episode we will look at the importance of understanding carditis and an easy way that I used in nursing school to remember the area affected by each type; then, run through a quick scenario at the end to apply what we have learned ..read more

Does insulin save lives, or does it take lives? Bodies that don’t produce enough insulin shut down, but if too much insulin is in the system it can be just as disastrous. As nurses, we are often tasked with administering insulin to our patients. When done incorrectly it can be life-threatening.  For years I was a member of the code team, and count WHEN I was a new nurse I remember trying to keep track of the patients and insulin action times and the dosage times and everything else . . . I felt like I was drowning trying to keep it all straight in my head - I was both stressed and scared ..read more

I almost killed my patient. In the days after my scary event I spent hours and hours thinking through what I had done.   I knew my ABCs, I had prioritized everything I was supposed to, how could things have gone so horribly wrong…   See our full lesson on Prioritization at NURSING.com.   And I realized that I had overlooked a very important part of my ABCs.   It wasn’t the A - airway, the B - breathing, or the C - circulation  What was left, what did I miss? What I violated was Safety.  That small little “s” at the end of my ABCs - Safety    And I l ..read more