A nurse is assigned to care for a dying patient. To deal with this experience and future experiences with dying patients, the nurse should do which of the following?
a. Avoid going to funerals of former patients.
b. Develop a "hard shell" against emotional stress to avoid compassion fatigue.
c. Understand that people dying is part of the job to get used to.
d. Frequently evaluate his or her own emotional well-being.
D
Frequently evaluate your own emotional well-being. We all have feelings and memories about previous illnesses and death. Knowing more about your own grief and past experiences will help you care for others more insightfully. Being a professional caregiver involves knowing when to get away from a situation and how best to take care of one's self. Many nurses, especially those who routinely provide hospice care, attend a viewing at the mortuary or the funeral to show support for the family, honor the deceased's memory, and cope with their own grief. Develop your own support systems, take restful time away from your work, and find a person with whom you can safely share your feelings and concerns. Experiencing repeated deaths of patients can feel overwhelming at times. If you work in an area in which you experience multiple losses and fail to acknowledge your own feelings of loss, you may begin to feel overwhelmed by intense emotions (e.g., frustration, anger, guilt, sadness, or dissatisfaction with life) and become vulnerable to compassion fatigue.
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The nurse is providing morning care for a male patient who is recovering from a head injury. The patient's right hand has begun twitching, and he is speaking unintelligibly. This patient has most likely experienced what type of seizure?
A) Tonic-clonic seizure B) Complex partial C) Absence seizure D) Simple partial
A client comes to the emergency department in obvious distress, holding his groin. He refuses to get undressed to be examined. Which statement or question by the nurse is most appropriate?
a. "I'll leave the room if that makes you feel better. When you are undressed, put on the call light." b. "If you don't let us examine you to see what the problem is, you may lose blood supply to your genital area." c. "No one can help you if we can't see what's going on. So please take off your clothes." d. "Sometimes men get painful erections that won't go away or problems with their testicles. If that's the problem, we can help you."
Children are taught the values of their culture through observation and feedback relative to their own behavior. In teaching a class on cultural competence, the nurse should be aware that which factor may be culturally determined?
a. Ethnicity b. Racial variation c. Status d. Geographic boundaries
A patient who has been taking amiloride (Midamor) for the past 3 months reports that she must shave her legs more frequently. What is the nurse's best action?
a. Hold the next dose and notify the prescriber immediately. b. Instruct the patient to stop taking oral contraceptives while she is taking this drug. c. Document the response and reassure the patient that this is an expected side ef-fect. d. Ask the patient whether she has noticed any changes in the thickness of her scalp hair.