While Pixie liked the other picture I posted, she didn’t feel that it conveyed the true feeling of Halloween. So here she is again, as photogenic as ever, complete with her magic hat, pumpkin, and the beauty of the fall foliage behind her. I have to say, those orange leaves certainly lend a “Halloweeny” feel to the air all their own.

Happy new year to all pagans and witches.

Pixie and I wish you all a very happy and magical Halloween.

There is no update. Nothing is happening. Same old, same old. The FDA still hasn’t made their way to Canada to check out their manufacturing plants. I don’t know, maybe they’re waiting next season, or for a sunny day, or for armageddon.

Universal Vaccination

Some reports have mentioned that the CDC or HHS, or one of those places, is going to start recommending “universal vaccination” for the flu. Translation; every American should get a flu vaccine, regardless of age, health status, or whether they’ve ever even had the flu. This is to make it more profitable for manufacturers to get into the flu vaccine business, because selling 300 million vaccines is alot better for the bottom line than selling only 60 million.

So if they decide that universal vaccination is the only way to drum up more vaccine produers, then there’s going to be this push for everyone to go get their yearly flu shot. In fact, it will even be unpatriotic not to protect yourself against the flu.

Sigh…why am I surprised? Instead of doing something simple, like just guaranteeing that all flu doses currently manufactured will be purchased and paid for, they decide to take (maybe) this totally asinine approach. Like there aren’t enough health problems to worry about, without trying to project the flu as a major killer.

Between 5-20% of Americans come down with the flu every year. Of those, there are about 200,000 flu-related hospitalizations, and 35,000 deaths. Not to sound cruel, but of 300 million people in this country, that’s not a whole lot. The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are among people who are at high risk, the ones who the vaccine is recommended for anyway. We can go a step further and recommend that health care workers, especially those working with vulnerable populations in nursing homes, or with cancer patients, etc., get vaccinated, so they don’t inadvertantly spread the flu to those people. But at the end of the day, unless we get another Spanish flu pandemic, the flu is not a major threat or killer for most people.

That said, some people want to get vaccinated to avoid the discomfort, lost work days, etc. And that’s fine. Anyone who wants to should be able to get vaccinated. But what I don’t like is that “push” to try to convince people that they “need” a flu vaccine, and that they will somehow be jeopordizing the health of the nation if they don’t get one every year. Please, spare me.

My sentiments exactly. It is dark and chilly outside, looks like the sun never came up. I feel like curling up in bed, but alas, there are deadlines looming.

But hey, aren’t those a nice set of tonsils?

I’m a history buff, so bear with me. Actually, the past three days have been anniversaries of notable events that somehow related to health.

Today, in 1914, Jonas Salk was born. He is best known for creating the first successful polio vaccine.

Yesterday, October 27, in 1553, Michael Servetus was burned at the stake in Geneva. Okay, so who is Servetus? Not exactly a household name, except if you have any interest in the history of early physiologists who playd with blood. Servetus was a Spanish physician who first described that blood circulated through the lungs, but undoubtedly due to restrictions of the era, he couldn’t take his theory any further. His book was declared heresy and blasphemous, and like all other good heretics of the time period, he ended up being executed Joan of Arc style.

October 26, in 1984, doctors made “history,” if you want to be so kind as to call it that, by transplanting a baboon’s heart into an infant known only as Baby Fae. She was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which is incompatible with life, and as human hearts for transplant are hard to come by, her brilliant physcians thought that a baboon heart would work just as well. It was a sad situation, because the waiting list for transplants is long, and Baby Fae probably would have died. That said, and I remember this case clearly, experts in the area of transplantation warned that an animal heart would not work in Baby Fae. Her body would reject it ASAP. Four adults had received animal hearts prior to this, and all of them died within a few days.

But wouldn’t you know it, some doctor wants to get his name in the news, and goes ahead and tortures this little girl–and her family–by doing the transplant. Within a month, Baby Fae is dead. As expected.

Docs Do It Better When They Get More Sleep

Not exactly a surprising revelation. Most people function better when they have sufficient sleep, and when a sleep deprived individual holds your life in his or her hands…

The tradition is our country is for residents to work as many hours as possible, sometimes 30 hours in a row without any sleep, in order to “train them and give them experience.” Never mind that not only are they fairly inexperienced, but that sleep deprivation may also be clouding their better judgment.

From my own experience, I can’t even begin to tell you how many medical errors I’ve caught, orders which were written by a doctor who belonged in bed sound asleep, and not doing patient care. It’s been a brutal battle to limit the hours of residents. Some of the conservative medical associations opposed limiting hours, saying that these new docs have to pay their dues. And hospitals certainly didn’t want to put limits on them–residents are about the cheapest labor you can get.

However, this new study, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest (I love that word–it’s what researchers use all the time to cover their butt) that current guidelines that allow interns and residents to work long hours without a break are endangering patient safety.

No kidding.

Would anyone let an airline pilot fly for 30 hours without rest? Would you willingly get into a taxi if you knew the driver hadn’t slept for the past 24 hours? No, of course not. So then why do we think it’s okay for a doctor to practice medicine in that state? For those who think that sleep deprived physicians are a boon to medical care, let’s see what they think about having their gall bladder removed by one of these bleary eyed creatures, whose mind is far removed from the operating room and is thinking only about a warm bed.

In this particular study, the interns worked 19.5 fewer hours and slept 5.8 more hours each week, and they slept more in the 24 hours preceding each working hour.

Results? For starters, the interns found that they were more alert, and falling asleep about half as often while on duty. Yes, doctors do fall asleep while on duty. One famous case is of a surgical resident who passed out right on top of a patient, during surgery!

But now for the really hot news. When comparing medical errors between interns working the traditional minimal sleep schedule, with those who were getting more sleep, the researchers found that the more sleep-deprived interns made 35.9% more serious errors, including misdiagnosing patients, ordering the wrong medication or dose, interpreting test results incorrectly, or making a mistake during a procedure.

So the defense rests. I mean, just use common sense. The study adds power to the movement to restrict the hours of residents, but common sense and very basic knowledge of human physiology has long conflicted with this concept. People need sleep to function.

The Washington Post has a good article about this, but remember, it will be gone within the week.

Miraculously, despite predictions of rain today, the sun was shining, sky clear, and most important, it did not cloud over as the moon rose. So we had a clear night for the eclipse.

Here it is, over Seattle.

Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

A lovely autumn day in Seattle. I abandoned my computer and went outside. Yes, contrary to popular belief, it is not always raining in Seattle, or drizzling, or shrouded under gloomy gray skies.

It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that nurses were permitted to go on strike. Hospitals, I’m sure, were now beside themselves that nurses could legally stand up for the right to be paid a living wage and have decent working conditions. But as strikes usually arise from union activity, and as only 12% of nurses in this nation are unionized, nurses strikes are relatively rare, despite the press that they often receive.

Many nurses, influenced by the call to martyrdom, don’t “believe” in going on strike. Like good little worker bees and being the celestial angels that they are, they somehow think that it is harmful to the patient if they strike. They are the nurses that hospitals adore, the ones who they can convince to sacrifice their health, well being and common sense in the name of “serving the patient.”

Strikes are not called haphazardly. They are the last resort, after negotiations have broken down and the facility refuses to budge. The hospital is then warned far in advance of a strike, and it is up to them to stop admitting patients, stop performing elective surgeries, and to move patients out. Most hospitals ignore this call, and instead, hire contract scabs to come in and work, usually at an extravagant price. And of course, there are always the martyrs who will work because it is for the good of the patient.

Everyone has the right to make a decision about striking. I don’t believe that a nurse should be forced to go on strike by her union. But here is the question that I once posed to an angel martyr, who insisted that striking was wrong, and that her first allegiance was to her patient.

“So,” I told her, “You refused the pay raise and health benefits.”

She looked at me blinking. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the nurses at XX Hospital, where you used to work, got a pay raise and changes in their health benefits. Plus changes in the pay scale and the on-call policy. This was accomplished by going on strike. You turned them down, of course. I mean, you think striking is immoral, so naturally, you won’t accept anything that was obtained by immoral means.”

She hemmed and hawed, but never answered. Of course not. She preferred others to do her dirty work, and then she could sit back and reap the benefits without messing up her angelic profile. So my question is; if you don’t believe in going out on strike, and won’t go on strike, then should you accept the benefits which are obtained because of the strike? If you won’t strike, then isn’t it morally wrong to take the money, so to speak?

Halloween is almost upon us. The leaves are turning, the air is getting crisp and cool (okay, downright chilly), and here in Seattle, the winter rains are beginning.

Thanks to Kas Log for this great pumpkin.

Take Action Now!

The British Medical Association (BMA) has their knickers in a twist, and warns that we better act now to defend ourselves against bioterrorism. Or else.

A new report released todayby the BMA paints a bleak picture of the global community’s ability to cope with advances in biological and genetic weapons technology.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA Head of Science and Ethics, is quoted as saying, “The situation today is arguably worse than it was when we published our last report five years ago. The very existence of international laws to protect us is being questioned, the anthrax attacks in the US in 2001 caused widespread panic and fear, and most worryingly of all, it’s never been easier to develop biological weapons - all you have to do is look on the internet.”

UN Delays Decision on Cloning

Despite pressure from the Bush administration, the UN is showing some backbone and refuses to make a decision that may influence upcoming election results. Sorry guys, but no dice.

Bush and friends have been pressuring the United Nations to pass a “total ban on human cloning,” which would outlaw all human cloning, including the cloning of human embryos for research purposes. Sixty-one countries, including the United States, believe that all scientific research using cells extracted from cloned embryos should be banned immediately, while 24 countries say that cloning for research purposes, if regulated properly, has the potential for advancing health and science.

Great Britain, much to Bush’s dismay I’m sure, sides with the opposition, and the The Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, is urging countries to reject the U.S. backed proposal.

Britain’s UN ambassador, was quoted in the L.A. Times as saying, “No country has the right to seek to impose on the rest of the world a ban on therapeutic cloning, when its own legislature won’t impose the ban nationally.”

He added that the U.S. seeks to “impose a single dogmatic and inflexible viewpoint on the rest of the world and overturn decisions which have been legitimately taken by other national governments.” The UK will not take part in a total ban no matter what the UN decides.

The Flu Season Begins

A Manhattan nursing home reports 9 cases of the flu, the first outbreak since the flu vaccine crisis began. According to health officials in Manhattan, 66% of its 46,000 nursing home residents have not had a vaccine because of the shortage.

The controversy over stem cells has aroused impassioned arguments on both sides. Those who oppose using stem cells harvested from embryos believe that it is morally and ethically wrong to destroy an embryo for the sake of science. The embryo is alive, same as any person, and it is wrong to kill it.

My ethical argument is; if one believes that it is wrong to kill an embryo for stem cell research, then is it also wrong to reap the benefits of such research? For example, suppose there was a major breakthrough in Parkinson’s disease, derived from the use of embryonic stem cells. If you are passionately opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells, and believed it was wrong to destroy the embryo for this purpose, would you refuse the new and advanced treatment? Or would you continue to suffer with a debilitating disease and hope for a more ethical cure to come along?

There is no right or wrong answer on this, but it is something to consider. There are many scenarios like this one. Some people take their beliefs only so far, others are willing to die for them.

If you’ve ever visited Shanghai, then no one has to explain the meaning of overpopulation to you. With six billion people on the earth, we are definitely bursting at the seams. But another population explosion is taking place, one that doesn’t get very much media attention, considering that it is linked to a very hot topic right now.

Pre-embryos are multiplying by leaps and bounds. Housed in their tiny petri dishes, living in a frozen state of suspended animation, the pre-embryo’s future is often uncertain. Will it one day find a home in a nice warm womb and grow into a full fledged baby? Will it be destroyed, melted, flushed down the toilet? Or will it remain in liquid nitrogen for all eternity, in its frozen world, technically alive but then again, not quite.

Last year, the first national census of frozen human embryos in US fertility clinics revealed that we have a whopping 400,000 of them, tallied from 430 facilities that responded to the survy. Numbers of frozen embryos at 58 other facilities were estimated by the census takers and included in this total. However, a 32 additional clinics did not respond, and those numbers are unknown. So the 400,000 is a conservative estimate at best, considering that the number has probably increased in the 18 months since the survey was performed.

Great Britain did a similar survey in 1996, which revealed 50,000 pre-embryos, cooling their heels in liquid nitrogen. This total, however, is now 8 years old. Other nations also have frozen embryos as well. So how many pre-humans are curently in the frozen storage? An educated guess would be somewhere between half and one million.

Frozen for Eternity?

Most of the embryos are still part of ongoing fertility attempts, but a growing number are just sitting…and waiting. Some of have been in storage for over a decade. It is an increasingly difficult dilemma as to what to do with the embryos that have no womb to curl up in.

Couples who have completed their families or just given up on fertility treatments often don’t know what to do with their “leftovers.” For some, destroying them is out of the question. They see the frozen embryos as their children; children that they don’t necessarily want to nurture and grow, but offspring and human life nevertheless. So if they don’t destroy them, and don’t implant them, what can you do with them?

Unlike a pregnancy, which has a definite time limit and ending, frozen embryos don’t have an expiration date. At least, none that we have identified so far. Thousands of embryos are just sitting and waiting, for that eternal day when someone figures out what to do with them.

Should’ve, Could’ve but Didn’t

The heated controversy over stem cell research has yet to fully touch on this issue. Many parents do specifically designate their pre-embryos to research, but as they are not part of the official stem lines that the Bush administration has deemed worthy of government funding, they can only be donated for private research. The questions arises; is it better to chuck these little guys down the toilet, leave them for all eternity in their frozen land, or use them for research which may benefit society? Rather than destroying embryos, many of which are “abandoned,” wouldn’t it be more constructive to use them for stem cell research?

Some religious and conservative group, along with anti-abortion advocates, have often criticized the fertility industry for proliferating an overgrowth of embryos without any thought as to what to do with them. And on this, I heartily agree. Technology has run way ahead of ethics. Freezing extra embryos saves the woman the trauma of having to repeated go in and retrieve eggs, but on the other hand, no one ever considered that there would be leftovers to contend with. Or that the leftovers may soon reach the one million mark.

But should have and shouldn’t have. It’s water under the bridge. The embryos are currently here, there’s no going back in time. Some of these groups have called for more “embryo adoptions,” in which the embryos are “adopted” and implanted into the uterus of the adoptive woman. But merely “calling for” more adoptions isn’t going to make this a popular option.

Some embryos have been adopted, but for most people, it is not an attractive option. Many parents are loathe to put their embryo up for adoption, as the idea of having another couple raise their child is less than appealing. To them, it is like giving away one of their children.

On the flip side, most couples who are going through fertility treatments, and thinking of in-vitro fertilization, prefer to have a child that is at least partly genetically related to them. Getting a ready made embryo is most definitely not a first choice in the baby game. They prefer to try with their own eggs and sperm, or donor egg/daddy’s sperm, or mommy’s egg/donor sperm, before considering an adoption.

Although there is no registry for adopted embryos, according to some estimates, less than 50 embryo adoptions have taken place.

So what should we do with them? No other alternatives have been suggested by groups opposed to stem cell research and destroying unused embryos. And in the meantime, the population continues to grow.

Images: courtesy of Free Images

Congress Decides Not to Be Greedy Afterall

Seeking to address complaints of preferential treatment, Republican congressional leaders said Friday that 3,000 doses of flu vaccine intended for lawmakers, aides and other Capitol employees would instead be given to Washington’s municipal health department and hospitals.

Isn’t that nice of them? Capitol physician John Eisold had specifically encouraged members of Congress to get the shots, defending his stance by saying they are at an elevated risk of getting and spreading the flu. Uh, I don’t think that they are at higher risk than the staff who works in DC’s emergency rooms, or other people who deal with huge numbers of “real” people every day. And besides, do we really know or “miss” a member of Congress if they are out sick? Whereas, we certainly feel it if an emergency room is short-staffed, or if EMTs are out sick and there’s no one to answer 911 calls.

No Wonder They’re Short-Staffed

If you are looking for a job in Louisiana, you may want to consider the medical field. According to recent statistics, there are 11,000 nursing positions available statewide, many of them in Acadiana.

Did anyone tell them that one of the reasons may be their pay rate? According to this story, Southwest Medical Center in the Acadiana region reports that salaries for RNs start at $32,000 a year. Wow. That would certainly me entice me to become a nurse and seek out a job there. And what are the working conditions like? Do they pay their nurses that princely sum and expect them to do mandatory overtime, take care of 8-10 patients a shift, and pick up the slack because they’ve cut back on housekeeping and unit clerks?

“At Lafayette General, another area hospital, a newly graduated registered nurse has an opportunity to earn an annual rate of pay of $34,100 to $44,500 based on the shift they work and the unit they work on.” So in other words, if you work straight nights and every weekend, you fall into the higher category. And work in the unit with the worst staffing and highest stress level.

And they can’t figure out why no one wants to work there.

This isn’t exactly pressing news, and wasn’t at all what I planned to write about this afternoon. But seeing this mythology repeated on a popular nurses website (allnurses.com), prompted me to attempt to destroy a deeply ingrained urban myth.

Dr. Charles Drew, a man who died 54 years ago. He was only 46 years old, and a tragic automobile accident claimed his life. As the urban legend goes, Charles Drew died because he was denied admission to a White’s Only hospital in North Carolina. Even more ironic, as a variation of the urban legend goes, he was denied a blood transfusion even though he was one of the pioneers in transfusion medicine.

The only truth to this story is that Drew was involved in a car accident, and did die as a result of injuries sustained. The rest, however, is pure myth. Pure legend. Pure urban legend.

Charles R. Drew (1904-1950)was a black surgeon who pioneered techniques for preserving blood plasma, and thanks to his work, countless lives were probably saved during WW II. He was also the founder of the American Red Cross Blood Program. His accomplishments are all the more noteworthy, considering that opportunities for black Americans weren’t exactly abundant during his lifetime, and the doors in most professions usually slammed shut in their faces.

The accounts of his actual accident vary, as to the cause, but what is clear is that in 1950, while driving three other black doctors to a conference in Alabama, Drew lost control of the car. He suffered extensive injuries, including a crushing injury to his chest. According to the legend, he was in desperate need of a blood transfusion to save his life, but was forbidden from entering a small hospital in Burlington, North Carolina. Whites only, he was told, and so Drew died.

This story has been repeated many times over, and was even mentioned on an episode of the popular television show MASH. Well, if MASH says it, then it must be so. This rendition of Drew’s demise can even be found in some black history books.

But according to Dr. John Ford, who was in the car when it crashed, all of them “received the very best of care. The doctors started treating us immediately.”

According to Ford, “Even the most heroic efforts couldn’t have saved him. I can truthfully say that no efforts were spared in the treatment of Dr. Drew, and, contrary to popular myth, the fact that he was a Negro did not in any way limit the care that was given to him.”

The reason I think this story is important is because it symbolizes how much misinformation is out there, and simply because a story has been floating around for a while, doesn’t make it true. That said, finding out the truth can sometimes be difficult and tedious, considering the enormous amount of information we have at our fingertips. Take the Internet, for example. I don’t know how I lived without it, but a lot of the stuff you find online is very inaccurate. The more research I do, the more I find out how careful you really have to be.

Anyway, now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Just Keep Bungling Along

The New York Times has a great article this am (remember, it will vanish into archives within 7 days) about the lack of information being given to local and state health officials concerning the flu vaccine. So what else is new, you are probably thinking.

At a press conference yesterday, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, told reporters that we had “healthy supplies” of vaccines and anti-flu drugs to handle even a difficult flu season. About 61 million doses would be available for the estimated 90 million Americans at high risk for flu. So, where are they? Come out come out from wherever you are….

It seems that they aren’t showing up at the doors of county and state health departments. Sonomish County health officials here in Washington state, for example, says that 90,000 people at high risk for flu, but yet, have thus far received about 10,000 doses of vaccine. Officials in other states and counties are reporting equally tiny amounts.

And something is a little wrong with the math, if Thompson thinks that there are healthy supplies of vaccine. Does 61 million doses for 90 million people add up? Maybe if you do government math it does.

Another sad thing that this article points out is that Wyeth was making more than 20 million doses of flu vaccines annually, and got out of the vaccine business in 2002. Dr. Walter Orenstein, former dirctor of the CDC’s national immunization program, said the government should have used incentives to coax Wyeth, and another company King, to keep making the vaccines. A spokesperson from Wyeth said that they were never even approached by the government and that, “We might have considered their offer if such an offer was made.”

So much for Bush’s speech the other day in Florida, about doing all that we can to get flu vaccine to people.

Drugged Driving

On a different note, it may surprise people to know that while there are detailed laws about drunk driving, relatively nothing on the books exists for drugged driving. If a driver high on cocaine slams into you, what penalties does that driver face? USA Today has an interesting story about this highly overlooked problem. When a Ohio Highway Patrol Trooper was hit by a car driven by a driver with cocaine in his system, the state had to spend spend thousands of dollars on experts to prove that the driver had enough cocaine in his system that he shouldn’t be driving. Even though cocaine use and posession is a felony in Ohio, there were no laws on the books that addressed driving under its influence.

“More than 1.5 million people were arrested in the USA last year for driving drunk. Police departments and public health specialists estimate that at least as many people drive under the influence of drugs each year — and rarely are prosecuted for it.”

Strange, isn’t it. We have lawmakers eager to lock up someone who is walking around with a little marijuana in his pocket, but yet, have never addressed the issue of driving under the influence of drugs. And this should hold true for people using legal prescription drugs that may cloud their judgment.

With all of the problems currently plaguing the nursing profession, one would think–and hope–that hospitals and nurse administrators would have better and more pressing things to occupy their mind with. One would hope.

One would also hope that they would consider spending their precious time on figuring out to make their workplace more productive, pleasant, tolerable, and enticing to nurses. One would think that they would be far more concerned with recruiting and retaining staff, than alienating them.

One would hope and think.

Of course, that’s not how it plays in real life. Working conditions at most facilities are getting worse rather than better. And now some facilities have come up with the brainstorm of having nurses go retro–back to those good old days of white uniforms.

Return of the Evil Whites

White uniforms have thankfully, gone the way of the dodo bird for the most part. Most nurses now wear scrubs in a dazzling array of patterns and colors. Some hospitals do have a dress code, but it is not white uniforms. However, over the past few years, hospitals in Georgia, Texas, Illinois and other states have begun a slow and insidious return to the hideous whites that nurses thought they had left far behind them. And the reason for this madness? Hospitals are saying that patients are “confused” and don’t know who their nurse is. Because everyone from dietary to doctors to housekeeping is now wearing scrub clothes, patients are finding it difficult to differentiate their caregivers.

So the nurse has to suffer because of this? How about docs in scrubs? Why not put them into a white uniform so that no one will confuse them with housekeeping?

Whoever originally decided to put nurses in white uniforms was certainly using some type of hallucinogenic. There is not a color on earth that is more impractical for the type of work that a nurse does. And no color begins to look dingy and dirty faster than white.

The Olden Days

In those good old days, hospitals used to launder nurses’ uniforms. So okay, at least they took responsibility for keeping them clean. But those days are long since gone, and now these facilities want nurses to return to white, and be responsible for the constant laundering and bleaching that these clothes require. At least they haven’t started mandating caps. Not yet.

Aside from being a highly unpractical color, wearing white also symbolizes the nurse as being angelic and saintly, pure and pristine, almost the vigin in her white wedding gown. The nurse/angel connection is one of the most damning to the profession, and deciding to bring back whites is a huge step backwards to nurses. If patients are confused, well, provide more clarity. Have all the ancilliary personnel wear a certain color. Have the nurse wear a huge tag that says “RN” on the front of her shirt. Make sure the nurse introduces herself to each patient at the beginning of the shift, and designates that she is the one that any questions or concerns should be directed towards.

Patients will get over it. Believe me, we have had many changes in our society and people adjust. For example, up also quite recently, most doctors were male. So should women have stayed out of medicine because having a female doctor was “confusing” to patients? Most nurses are now women. Should men stay out of nursing because that may confuse patients, to have a male nurse?

Nursing uniforms originally consisted of a colored dress, with a white apron worn over it. Caps were to keep hair out of the face. So white isn’t even the “original” nursing uniform. Maybe we should go back to wearing those cute striped floor length dresses, covered with snowy white aprons, and those starched white bonnets which covered a good part of the nurses’ head.

To me, pushing nurses back into something that was left behind–and left behind for good reason–sort of reeks of trying to exert some sort of control. Mandating a set uniform, putting them back into a color which symbolizes the days when nurses had to stand when a physician walked into the room, trying to impose something which has absolutely no benefit; how about if they asked their nurses what suggestions they had for making themselves more visible to patients? Or their opinion on what they think is the most appropriate attire to wear on the job.

I’ve heard some nurses say that there’s nothing wrong with nurses having a set uniform. Afterall, professions such as firefighters and police have uniforms, which allow them to be recognized by the public. Well, in that line of thought, why don’t doctors have uniforms so that they can be recognized? How about all of the other hospital personnel? Speech therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, phlebotomists, janitors, all the bureaucrats–why don’t they have uniforms?

Sorry if I seem a little obsessed about the flu vaccine, or lack of (considering I would never get one even it was free and brought to my house), but the story keeps getting better and better with each passing moment.

Now it has hit the political arena. Senator John Kerry, presidential hopeful, was quoted as saying, in an AP story, “If you can’t get flu vaccines to Americans, how are you going to protect them against bioterrorism? If you can’t get flu vaccines to Americans, what kind of health care program are you running?”

Well, we don’t know if the situation would be any better, had Kerry been president. But he’s not president, Bush is. And here is what Bush had to say in the same article, “I want to assure them that our government is doing everything possible to help older Americans and children get their shots despite the major manufacturing defect that caused this problem.”

Oh really?

Typical mindless and meaningless chatter. The government is still discussing vaccines from Canada, and talking about an expediated FDA approval process that will only take weeks instead of months. And the FDA still hasn’t managed to make it to Canada yet.

If the government was doing everything, they’d have had those Canadian vaccines yesterday. Or last week. Better yet, they would have figured something out before now, like giving companies some incentive to make flu vaccines so there’d be a wider choice. Or having a contingency plan in the case of an emergency. Like now.

And Mr. Bush very nicely omitted the fact that vaccines are available to all of those strapping young bucks in DC. Now why didn’t he tell that to all those nice old folks in Florida? But yes, the next phase of this phenomenal story, is that the flu vaccine is widely available in the capitol, for whoever wants it.

While many elderly Americans are standing in line for hours to try to get a vaccine, the shot is available just for the asking and free of charge, for members of Congress and staff at the U.S. Capitol.

“Thousands of legislative staffers, police officers, journalists and others who work in the U.S. Capitol complex can get a flu shot by saying they meet the high risk criteria.” The story appeared in the Washington Post, but since that will go into archives, here is a shorter version of it from Reuters. It’s nice to know that our president means what he says, and that members of congress are so concerned about the health and well being of their constituents.

So it has happened, the worst possible scenario. Americans are now crossing the border to get flu shots in Canada. The Canadians say that they are happy to oblige, as long as Americans don’t pour over by the thousands, and overwhelm their capacities.

Strange, isn’t it, how some Americans are willing to risk getting vaccinated with a substance that is not FDA approved, and where the production facilities have not been inspected by the FDA. That they’re willing to risk God-knows-what because as we known, Canadian drugs and vaccines can’t be counted on for safety.

I’m being sarcastic, of course. This was the obvious move. While the talking heads at home keep talking and conferring, and thinking about possible solutions, people are acting on their own volition. And it is a conundrum. First the government talking heads, in order to protect the high prices in the U.S., keep blabbing that drugs from Canada may be unsafe. So therefore, importing/buying drugs from Canada is not a viable solution for people who cannot afford the prices here at home, or who are just weary of being ripped off. Now that we are desperate for flu vaccine (and a situation which was caused by our very own inaction), the same talking heads know that the Canadians have some extra doses. They know that they are perfectly safe. But they just can’t swallow their pride and buy them. They have to go through the song and dance, jump through hoops, and make it seem like this is a very complex matter. Meanwhile, people at high risk will be getting the flu, and possibly end up dead.

So if you live in a border state, just head on over the border. There’s plenty of safe and effective vaccine in Canada.

Read the story: Americans Going to Canada for Flu Vaccine

Okay, back to clean hospital waste. As I said in my earlier post today, there is a lot waste from hospitals that doesn’t belong in the trash. But because we are so in love with disposables, we often dispose items that have an extended shelf life.

Yes, it is so simple just to chuck every thing into the trash. And we also have it in our heads an exaggerated notion of cleanliness. If an item is still sealed, it is still sterile. But no, wait, it’s been at a patient’s bedside. Therefore, it is contaminated, and besides, the patient has already been charged for it. So, into the garbage you go.

Believe it or not, this was the mentality at a hospital that I passed through in Florida. I worked there through a temporary registry, and I was only about two years into my nursing career. But yet, I knew that the infection control policies were off the wall, and the infection control nurse needed to have her brain disinfected and autoclaved.

This was a large county facility, and the unit was newborn intensive care. When an admission would arrive, the baby’s bed was stocked with every imaginable supply, needed or not. Formula, when the baby was breast feeding. IV tubing, even if there wasn’t going to be an IV. And so on. Some of it got used, some was restocked as supplies were used up, but an awful lot of it sat there unused. When discharge came around, everything was thrown out. THROWN OUT.

Items still sealed in sterile packaging from the factory, formula bottles sealed and unopened, expensive supplies that could just be placed back on the shelf or put in a different infant’s bed. Their policy was that once put into the baby’s incubator or bassinet, it had now become “tainted.” Somehow, according to their logic, the germs from the baby were able to make their way through the linens, the mattress, crawl through the metal frame and into the drawers where the supplies were kept, and then gnaw their way into the sterile packaging. An amazing journey, no doubt, and indeed, even more amazing that no one ever published a scientific paper on this phenomenon.

I refused to toss out the supplies. When one of the nurses’ told me that I couldn’t put the supplies back onto the shelf, I took a plastic trash bag and began to pack them up.

She was shocked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to give them to the Red Cross,” I told her. “Surely they can find someone to give them to.” I then berated her about the idiocy of their policy, but she defended it. And so did the other nurses who were working there.

They said it was their infection control policy. That once an item left the shelf, it was no longer clean. Interesting, I replied. Then why isn’t the baby’s bed autoclaved after discharge? Sterilized? How can you just put a new admit into a bed that’s been merely wiped down and linens changed?”

Of course, no answer to that one. A lot of steam coming out of their pointed ears, but nothing more. And then I pointed out the illogic of their logic. Infection control, huh. Then according to their bizarre take on things, the items were tainted the second a human hand touched the packaging. That meant that their sterility was gone as soon as someone packed them up for shipping at the factory, and certainly, when someone unpacked them at the hospital and put them on the shelves.

I also pointed out how this was a county facility, and their policy was wasting thousands of dollars every month.

No, I didn’t make a whole lot of friends. But it was one of the worst places that I had ever set foot in, as far as the staff went. It was sort of like being back in junior high, with a bunch of pre-pubescent girls who giggled alot, paired off into little cliques, and concerned themselves with being popular. This bunch was a back stabbing, gossiping group of obnoxious twits who believed that they were God’s gift to healthcare.

It really made one wonder if the hospital purposely recruited staff with the IQ of a moron. How any educated nurse could go along with this type of policy was truly amazing, but yet, not a word of dissent from any of them. Except to diss anyone who disagreed.

I returned to work there several times, and if I had been more experienced, I would have complained about their policy to a higher source. But as it was, there was a lot going on in my life at the time, including my plans to get away from both Florida and a bad relationship, so playing whistleblower was not high on my list.

Anyway, while I’m sure that most facilities aren’t this bad, waste still continues. It’s really sad, from an environmental, an economic, and a humanitarian standpoint.