Murphy's Nursing Law

• When you need the money, your shift is cancelled; when you have a weekend planned, you have to do overtime.
• Realizing the patient you've just injected has a serious infection causes you to stab yourself with the used needle.
• A 500 pound patient needs all care, while your 80 pound patient needs a finger dressing ... and your colleague has a "bad back."
• It's you're first night shift for three years. And it's a full moon.
• You're doing the "Only 27 more minutes of the shift from hell happy-dance", only to turn around to see your supervisor standing there.
• In a critical situation, the most highly qualified clinician will offer the most advice and the least support.
• The absurdity of the suggestion is directly proportional to the distance from the bedside.
• As soon as you finish a thirty minute dressing the doctor will come in, and take a look at the wound.
• The disoriented patient always comes from a Nursing Home whose beautiful paperwork has no phone number on it.
• Your nose will itch the very moment your gloved hands get contaminated with bodily fluids.
• The patient who has been dying all night finally meets his maker 12.5 minutes before shift change.
• You walk out of a patient's room after you've asked them if they need anything: they will put the call bell on as you are about three quarters the way down the hall.
• The patient furthest away from the nurses' station rings the call bell more often than the patient nearest to the nurses' station.
• The doctor with the worst handwriting and most original use of the English Language will be responsible for your most critical patient.
• You always remember "just one more thing" you need after you've gowned, gloved, and masked and gone into that isolation room.
• The correct depth of compression in adult CPR is a bit less than the depth you just reached when you broke those ribs.
• When you cancel extra staff because it's so quiet, you are guaranteed a rash of admissions.
• If you wear a new white uniform, expect to be thrown up on.
  Corollary: Residents always poop on your brand new shoes.
• When management smiles at you, be very, very afraid ...
• Staffing will gladly send you three aides--but you have to float two of your RNs.
• As soon as you discontinue the IV line, more fluids will be ordered.
• Mandatory meetings are always scheduled after you've had the night from hell and just want to go home to bed.
• You always forget what it was you wanted after you get to the supply room. You always remember when you get back to the other end ...
• Doctors only ask your name when the patient isn't doing well.
• Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when the boss is watching.
• As soon as you've ordered the pizzas, 25 patients show up at the ER registration desk along with three ambulances all with cardiac arrests!
• For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
• Ten seconds after you have finished giving a complete bed bath and changing the bed, the patient has a giant code brown.
• If a patient needs four pills, the packet will contain three.
• Your buddies who were reading the paper at the nurses' desk a minute ago always disappear when you need help ...
• Expect to get your pay raise the same day the hospital raises the parking rates (and other charges)
• The better job you do, the more work you can expect to be handed ...
• The amount of clean linen available is inversely proportional to your immediate needs.
• The more confused and impulsive a patient is, the less chance there is for a family member or friend to sit with the patient.
• The perfect nurse for the job will apply the day after that post is filled by some semi qualified idiot.
• If only one solution can be found for a problem, then it is usually a stupid solution.
• When the nurse on the preceding shift has surrounded the patient with absorbent pads, the code brown will hit every sheet and miss every pad.
• Rest assured that when you are in a hurry, the nurse's notes have not been written.
• When you are starting an IV on an uncooperative patient, or dealing with a huge code brown, there is a phone call for you and it's that crabby physician that you have been paging all morning.
• Fire drills always occur on your day from hell
• The first person in line when the clinic opens will not require urgent care. The sickest person will arrive 5 minutes before closing: "I thought I'd feel better"
• The Nursing Catch-22:
  If you're running around horribly busy, you're unorganized and need to prioritize, but if you're not running around horribly busy, you're lazy and need to find more work to do.

Nursing Theorists : Isabel Adams Hampton Robb

Isabel Adams Hampton Robb (1860–1910) was one of the founders of modern American nursing theory and one of the most important leaders in the history of nursing.

She graduated from the Bellevue Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1883. After gaining experience working as a nurse in Rome she traveled back to the United States to take a position as superintendent of nursing at the Cook County Hospital nursing school in Chicago. In her time as head of the nursing program there she implemented an array of reforms that set standards for nursing education. Most of these standards are still followed today.

One of her most notable contributions to the system of nursing education was the implementation of a grading policy for nursing students. Students would need to prove their competency in order to receive qualifications.

In 1889 she was appointed head of the new Johns Hopkins nursing school, where she continued to suggest reforms, participated in teaching, and published the text Nursing: Its Principles and Practice. After five years at Johns Hopkins she married Dr. Hunter Robb, and resigned to follow him to his new position as professor of gynecology at Case Western Reserve University. The Bullough article reports that she herself became a professor of gynecology. However, documents from Case Western and reference books differ from this account. Instead, they show that she worked with Cleveland's new Lakeside Hospital Training School for Nurses, the nucleus for Case Western's future School of Nursing. She also wrote two more books, Nursing Ethics(1900) and Educational Standards for Nurses (1907).

Other accomplishments include terms as president of American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses (now known as National League for Nursing), and of the organization that became the American Nurses Association. She was also one of the founders of the American Journal of Nursing.

Nursing Theorists : Hildegard Peplau

Hildegard Peplau, Ed.D (b. September 1, 1909, Reading, Pennsylvania - d. 17 March 1999) was a nursing theorist whose seminal work Interpersonal Relations in Nursing was published in 1952.

Dr. Peplau emphasized the nurse-client relationship as the foundation of nursing practice. At the time, her research and emphasis on the give-and-take of nurse-client relationships was seen by many as revolutionary. Peplau went on to form an interpersonal model emphasizing the need for a partnership between nurse and client as opposed to the client passively receiving treatment (and the nurse passively acting out doctor's orders).

The essence of Peplau's theories is the creation of a shared experience. Nurses, she thought, could facilitate this through observation, description, formulation, interpretation, validation, and intervention.

For example, as the nurse listens to her client she develops a general impression of the client's situation. The nurse then validates her inferences by checking with the client for accuracy. The result may be experiential learning, improved coping strategies, and personal growth for both parties.

Hildegard Peplau died in 1999, aged 89.

Nursing Theorists : Dorothea Elizabeth Orem

Dorothea Elizabeth Orem (1914- 22.06.2007) , born in Baltimore, Maryland, was a nursing theorist and founder of the Orem model of nursing, or Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory.

In simplest terms, this theory states that nurses have to supply care when the patients cannot provide care to themselves.

Dorothea Elizabeth Orem 92, died Friday, June 22, 2007 at her residence on Skidaway Island. She was a native of Baltimore, Maryland and resident of Washington DC before moving to Savannah 20 years ago. She was a Professor with the Catholic University in the School of Nursing. She was an author of books on the theory of nursing and for the past 25 years she was an independent consultant and scholar. She is survived by her life long friend, Walene Shields of Savannah and her cousin Martin Conover of Minneapolis, MN. Visitation will be 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sunday, June 24, 2007 at Fox and Weeks Funeral Directors, Hodgson Chapel. A Mass of Christian burial will be Monday, June 25, 2007 at 2 p.m. at St. James Catholic Church with burial in the Catholic Cemetery.

Nursing Theorists : Madeleine Leininger

Madeleine Leininger (13 July 1925 in Sutton, U.S.) is a pioneering nursing theorist, first published in the early 1980s. Her contributions to nursing theory involve the discussion of what it is to care. Most notably, she developed the concept of transcultural nursing, bringing the role of cultural factors in nursing practice into the discussion of how to best attend to those in need of nursing care.

Dr. Madeleine Leininger holds the following academic degrees and titles:

• PhD - Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology)
• LHD - Doctor of Human Sciences
• DS - Doctor of Science
• RN - Registered Nurse
• CTN - Certified Transcultural Nurse
• FRCNA - Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in Australia
• FAAN - Fellow American Academy of Nursing
• LL - Living Legend

Nursing Theorists : Virginia Henderson

Virginia Avenel Henderson (November 30, 1897 - March 19, was an American nurse, researcher, theorist, and author.

She was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the fifth of eight children of Lucy Abbot Henderson and Daniel B. Henderson and a descendant of a long line of scholars and educators.

She graduated from the Army School of Nursing, Washington, D.C., in 1921. She is part of the "Columbia school" of nursing theory, having graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University, with a M.A. degree in nursing education. She died at the Connecticut Hospice. She is buried in the family plot of the churchyard of St. Stephen's Church, Forest, Bedford County, Virginia.

Henderson is famous for a definition of nursing:

"The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge." (Henderson, 1966, p. 15 The nature of nursing. NY: Macmillan.)

The International Council of Nurses presented her with the first Christianne Reimann Prize in June 1985.

Nursing Theorists : Helen Erickson

Helen Lorraine (Cook) Erickson is the primary author of the theory, Modeling and Role-Modeling. Her work, co-authored with Tomlin, E. and Swain, M.A., was derived from years of clinical practice, was first published in 1983 by Prentice Hall and later by the EST Company. In 2006 she edited a book that provides additional, in-depth information that describes relations among soul, spirit, and human form. This 522 page book contains chapters authored by several Modeling and Role-Modeling scholars. Three other books are in process.

A society for the advancement of Modeling and Role-Modeling was established in 1985 at The University of Michigan. The Society meets biannually and provides information regarding related research, publications, etc.

Erickson was married to Lance Erickson in 1957 in Clare, Michigan. Together they live in Cedar Park, Texas where she holds the title of Professor Emeritus, The University of Texas at Austin.