Throughout the demanding nursing school curriculum, nursing students are taught the correct way to implement the nursing process, perform assessments, document, communicate, and administer medications. Knowledge of the best processes and steps to countless nursing procedures is critical to prepare nurses to provide safe, competent care. Particular emphasis is placed on proper medication procedures and how to prevent medication errors. Unfortunately, this preparation may not include much guidance on the procedures that should occur if a medication error occurs or the potential psychological ramification of a medication error. Clinical preceptors and nursing faculty need to educate nursing students on how to proceed when a medication error occurs so that nursing students appropriately handle medication errors and prevent similar errors in the future.
Zika virus has been trending in national and global news outlets before and throughout the summer of 2016. This viral outbreak is driven by mosquitos and sexual transmission, and is quickly spreading from South America to North America. The virus is linked to children born with microcephaly, which manifests as a deformity of the head as well as brain development issues. As of early August, Zika was found in the United States in Florida and the CDC has issued a travel warning to pregnant women and their partners traveling to Miami. To provide some insight on the Zika epidemic and other global health issues, I interviewed Dr. Lisa M: Noguchi who is Senior Maternal Health Advisor for Jhpiego, an implementing partner to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). She is the Zika Response Technical Lead.
Transforming iCoN into iCaN": This was the mantra for the student leaders of the University of Cincinnati Student Nurses' Association (UC SNA) for the past academic year. In March 2015, the UC SNA was awarded the Marilyn Bagwell Leadership Development Grant for the 2015-2016 academic year. Although this grant project encompassed nutrition education and improvement of healthy lifestyles for our nursing students for this past academic year, the UC SNA has promoted events in past years that involved increasing physical activity and healthy eating habits. However, the UC SNA student leaders felt strongly that it was very important to provide a more structured, holistic program for our students than to just offer sporadic events, and to make this the purpose of UC SNA. This thought process led to the variety of activities and events that were offered this past year. In 2013, the UC College of Nursing integrated AppleTM products into our learning, and coined the term "iCoN" to refer to this initiative. This was incorporated into the title of our project, as it truly encompassed multiple initiatives of the UC College of Nursing.
