A new report released today may give nurses with advanced degrees a potent weapon in their perennial battle to get the authority to practice without a doctor's oversight. The Institute of Medicine report says nurses should take on a larger and more independent role in providing health care in America, something many doctors have repeatedly opposed, citing potential safety concerns.  It ...

Patient abuse

(CNN) -- My mother, Sheila Schwartz, is a firecracker. As a lawyer, social worker, wife, mother of four and grandmother of 11, she's always on the go -- working, caring, loving life. About 10 years ago, when my mother was around 60, something suddenly changed. She began feeling tired, achy and dizzy, and her blood pressure was slightly high even though ...

ver the course of around 8-10 yrs we had a client that came into the facility for lengthy stays. With many attempts and failed home visits she continue to stay in the confines of the walls. She was a tall slender young female with a babyish childs voice. Who dressed neat an took care of her personal hygiene…until she got sick. ...

MONDAY, Sept. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Black patients are less likely than whites to receive the type of end-of-life care they request, even though both groups have similar rates of end-of-life discussions with their doctors, says U.S. researchers.

An 85-year-old grandmother stricken with stomach pains was told she had fast-spreading cancer and only two months to live. But after 18 harrowing months of at-home care, which Ramona Jimenez spent heavily medicated and in bed, she and her family learned she didn't have the deadly disease and had been wrongly diagnosed.

Flu Vaccine Could Reduce Heart Attack Risk, Study Says

FRIDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- More and more children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who act out aggressively are being given antipsychotic drugs in addition to stimulant medications to help control their volatile outbursts.

Sitting on the front porch of a 155 year old building looking out across the manicured lawn – where a time capsule is buried in the front circle for the next generation to discover. I sit and wonder what it must have been like when there were 2000 mentally ill patients on the census books. In the early 30,40,50's even up ...

This week, an Australian couple, Kate and David Ogg, said that a "kangaroo cuddle" saved the life of one of their twins. Doctors told the couple that baby boy Jamie, who was delivered prematurely at 27 weeks and weighed 2.2 pounds, would not live.  

Where is the support for the nurse? When I started nursing school 1986 I had no idea what I was really getting into. I just wanted to be able to have a job that traveled any where I wanted to live. No one told me what I would experience would be left up to me to deal with. When I began ...

MIAMI (CBS4) ― Click to enlarge 1 of 1 Marlie Casseus is back in Miami for a life saving surgery. A little more than a year after a teenage Haitian girl had a seventh, and final, surgery to remove an 18 pound tumor from her face, she and her doctors are once again reaching out for help. On Thursday, August 12th, ...

The next shift of nurses clock in at 1800 (6 PM) walking though four sets of locked steel doors they step into a all male unit with 12 clients. The air was filled with energy and extra staff has already been called to the unit. Every one has on the bright blue gloves for a fashion statement that someone is not ...

Eaten Alive: 5-year battle with flesh-eating germ

July 20 - Megan Brown of the Washington County Lifesaving Crew wedged herself into the floorboard of a sidewise pickup in the Virginia Highlands Community College parking lot and smeared fake blood on her face. She's getting ready for a femur fracture and a head injury and in about half an hour. In front of the two dozen Nursing Workforce Diversity ...

Protecting patient privacy is one of the cardinal rules in nursing (hello, HIPAA). The legalities behind breaking a patient's trust and breaching their confidentiality is one of the first principles nurses are taught. It doesn't matter how it's done — verbally, on paper, via texting or online — it's still wrong. Earlier this year, five nurses who worked at Tri-City Medical ...

TUESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) -- Patients admitted to an intensive care unit over the weekend may be more likely to die than those admitted at other times, perhaps because of reduced staffing, a review of research finds.

A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.

The doctors finally let Rosaria Vandenberg go home. For the first time in months, she was able to touch her 2-year-old daughter who had been afraid of the tubes and machines in the hospital. The little girl climbed up onto her mother's bed, surrounded by family photos, toys and the comfort of home. They shared one last tender moment together before ...

Your mom seemed her usual self when she went into the hospital for hip surgery, but two days later you find her restless—tossing in bed and hardly making sense, even though the surgeons say her operation went well. I hear this scenario from mystified caregivers all the time. And not surprisingly. Nearly a third of older people experience new or worsened ...