And to my fellow Americans:

With the passage of the Healthcare Reform, I urge you to consider all angles of the bill. I also urge you to be happy we can extend healthcare cover to 32 million more deserving Americans. 

This is going to be a long, long process. It won't be perfect after 5, 10, or even 20 years. This bill may not be the answer. However, if healthcare continues to run the way it does, we will all be broke, sick, and unable to provide for ourselves. 

Everyone deserves healthcare. Even the "bum" who sits at home and doesn't exercise. It's not your job to change him. It's your job to worry about yourself. It's your job to take care of yourself. And to be greatful you aren't the bum on the couch!

I don't know if this is the answer. What I don't like is that hospitals in the US are becoming more like hotels, and less like places where people's basic and complex healthcare needs are met. 

So please, let's just open our minds, and realize this is a long process. And the healthcare workers of this country will never ever let there be a time where good medicine is not practiced!

Best of Both Worlds?

I have determined I have a love/hate relationship with nursing in Australia. And the same with nursing in America. Don't know if I will ever reconcile the two, and I don't know if we can ever have the best of both worlds... but we could try??? A little Aussie... A little Americana.... 

Nurse:patient ratios- appropriate and safe.   +1 Aussie

Bank staff, on-call. All the time. No one works short.    +1 Aussie

6 weeks (or more paid annual leave)         +1 Aussie

FREE continuing Education +1 USA

Scrubs, no skirts +1 USA

Forward thinking attitude, APRN involvement: +1 USA

"Team Nursing" -1 Aussie (sorry)

Patient focused care +1 Aussie

Appropriate use of protocols +1 Aussie

Inappropriate/Overuse of protocols -1 USA

Fun Medical Slang +1 Aussie

Use of Technology +1 USA

Overuse of Technology -1 USA

Underuse of Technology -1 Aussie

Aussie.... 4

USA.........3  

Tough call....

Lessons of the South Pacific... continue

In order to keep things brief, I will jot down a few more things I have picked up on "in the future:"

- South Dakotan's have poor table manners. Or maybe just I have poor table manners. Somewhere in my development I missed out on a proper way to hold a fork and knife, as well as the proper placement of forks and knives to communicate with wait staff. yeah, I think that was just me who missed out....

- Growing old, does NOT mean growing up. Only if you let it. And you can regress in maturity. 

- Some things in life do not get easier. When I say that I refer to many aspects of my job. (See past blog posts)

- Vitamin D is a great deliverer of happiness for many who get to see it. 

- You can fall in love many times a day- with a place, with a song, with a soft bed to nap on, with air con, with the ocean, with an animal... there is no limit.

- Cadbury Cream eggs do not mend a broken heart. But they sure do help. So does ice cream. 

- There are far more people in the world from Asia than I ever imagined!

- Cure for a hangover: Anything which starts with an 'S'

   Swimming

   Saltwater

   Showers

   Slushies

   Sleeping

Imperative for living. There you have it!