Education Updates

Cultural Competency: Each quarter I will post new information and an article regarding cultural competency. I began with Spanish-speaking families and encouraging the liberal use of interpreters, since this is our most common language barrier. I posted a very interesting article in the break rooms on the perceptions of Mexican-Americans with critically ill children in the hospital. It is only a few pages and highlights some common practices to be aware of. Let me know what you think, or if you have ideas for future topics. There is also a free class "Cultural Competency in the Workplace" offered on Sept 6, 9AM-12PM, in Walterboro. Melinda and I plan to attend, so email me if interested.

Test-Taking Strategies: I've posted sign-up sheets for a test-taking strategies workshop I plan to hold in a couple weeks (7/22, 7/23, and 7/24). I attended a GREAT workshop last month and the instructor gave me her powerpoints to pass on to anyone interested in studying for CPN or CCRN. I consider myself a poor test-taker, but applying her strategies helped me get 5/5 questions correct at the end of the course, and they certainly weren't PICU specific. I think this could really help a lot of us.

Annual Competencies: Your competency packets are complete and I will be seeking you out in your super-user groups to go over validation methods. Once I've reached everyone to "teach the teacher" I will hand out the packets for you all to complete (at your own pace) by June 30, 2014.

Imporant Reminder: Please DO NOT confirm RT orders. We have discussed this several times, but we continue to receive complaints from RTs on both units. We have passed this on to the MDs to assist in notifying RTs of new orders and also to encourage them to enter the orders under RT to prevent RNs from confirming. Any other ideas to improve this process? Sorry for all the info at once, the blog was down all week and we're still working out glitches :)