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Bumper stickers. Whether you notice them because you’re stuck in traffic or you go out of your way to find great ones, you have to admit some of them are pretty darned funny or right on the mark.

Have you seen any great nurse bumper stickers? Here are our top 10 favorite decals found on zazzle.com.


1. Working in an emergency room, you see all sorts of stuff you want to place in the “What on EARTH were they thinking?” file. Now there’s a bumper sticker just for you: Trauma Nurse: Your stupidity is my job security!

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Phil Ashley | Lifesize | Thinkstock

Lab values, drug dosages, drip rates…there are numbers everywhere you look around the nursing station and unit.

When you’re a nurse, you can’t escape them. In some areas of nursing, you need to know only some basic numbers, but in other areas, you need to know very precise lab values and how to titrate medications to the tiniest amount possible.

Do you know your numbers? Let’s see how well you do on the NCLEX Lab Value and Medications Quiz!

Study material provided by NCLEX-RN Exam Prep:

Pearson IT Certification is a publishing imprint born of a tradition of proven learning tools and educational training materials such as NCLEX-RN Exam Prep (now in its second edition) that have helped generations of certification exam candidates succeed. Tapping into the exciting new opportunities provided by the technology advances of online learning and web-based services, Pearson has created a suite of products and solutions that address the learning, preparation and practice needs of a new generation of certification candidates. Pearson IT Certification delivers learning formats ranging from books to online learning and practice services, network simulators and video training.

Hemera | Thinkstock

Does the idea of working on Friday the 13th make you squirm? Have you banned the “Q” word from ever being uttered on your floor? If you said yes to either of these, you’re definitely a superstitious nurse. If you said no, let’s see if you’re really not superstitious, or if you’re just not aware of it yet!

1. The “Q” word
It’s practically a given. If you say anything remotely like “It’s a quiet day today,” all heck will break loose not long after. Patients who were quiet before are now ringing the call bells, a stable patient begins to decompensate and your little old lady in room 5 is trying to climb out of bed—again.

2. “We’re full—we can’t get too busy.”
Okay, the unit is full and you all have your assignments. The temptation to relax and say that you can’t get too busy because you can’t get admissions is a surefire way to make things go haywire.

3. Remembering a frequent flyer who hasn’t been in lately
All hospitals have them: patients who are admitted frequently because of their chronic illnesses. Some patients we enjoy, and others…not so much. But as soon as you say to a coworker, “I wonder how Mrs. B is doing? She must be doing well since she hasn’t been here in a while,” she’ll be in the ER.

4. A fly in the hospital means someone will die
Some nurses swear that if they see a fly, that means someone will be dying on their shift.

5. Tying a knot in the sheet for a DNR patient
If you have a patient who is a “no-code” or DNR, apparently tying a knot in the corner of his or her sheet will get the patient through your shift. The thing is, if every shift does it, the poor soul will never go anywhere!

6. Ordering a pizza or organizing a pot luck
It may be a quiet enough shift to grab a bite to eat, but never order a pizza or arrange the shift before for a potluck dinner, because you just know that this is when the patients will need you the most.

7. Starting IVs
No matter how beautiful a patient’s veins look, never say, “You have great veins; this will be a cinch.” Because you know that it won’t be now that you’ve said it. Along the same vein (sorry, pun intended), if you forget to bring the extra 2×2 gauzes, go get them, because if you don’t, your IV will be a squirter.

8. Never leave a room unprepared
If you have an empty room, don’t delay preparing it for the next patient. If you leave it unprepared (bed not made, supplies not stocked), it’s guaranteed that the ER is coming up with a patient RIGHT NOW.

9. Never say aloud that you hope the nurse taking over will be a few minutes early
Let’s say you are having a “Q” shift. Never say, “I hope so-and-so comes in a bit early today. I’d love to leave on time.” This is absolutely a surefire way for a patient to crash near the end of your shift or your relief will be stuck in traffic, miles away.

10. Preparing to leave a few minutes before shift end
Never, ever, ever cap your pens, put away your supplies in your bag and declare that you’re ready to go home. You just know what will happen then….

Do you have any superstitions?

Hemera | Thinkstock + Scrubs

It’s a simple prescription really: You get up, go about your day or shift, go home, wind down and then go to sleep; repeat daily.

But if you’re one of the nearly 10 percent of Americans who report having chronic insomnia or one of more than 25 percent who have occasional trouble sleeping, getting that shut-eye is anything but easy.

These statistics are taken from the general population. Chances are the numbers are higher among nurses who work shift work.

In order to help you increase your chances of getting some quality sleep, which in turn will hopefully lower your stress levels (and help your heart!), Scrubs offers you 10 tips to help you get much-needed rest, whether it’s making sure your room is dark enough or ensuring you have a good mattress to do it.

1. Develop a good go-to-bed routine.
You know those bad habits you can’t get rid of? Like biting your fingernails or saying “you know” after every two words? Bad habits are hard to break, but good habits should then be easy to keep. But you have to develop the habits first. By establishing a steady bedtime routine, your body and your mind will start to expect you to go to bed and, eventually, fall asleep.

It may take a while to establish a routine that works for you, but the trick is to be consistent. Some examples are turning your television or computer off an hour before bed, reading a book, brushing your teeth and meditating before turning off your light.

2. Brush your teeth two hours before bed.
If you do your night prep two hours before bed, including brushing and flossing your teeth, you’ll be less likely to eat or drink anything within that period. Many people find it more difficult to get a good sleep if they eat or drink within two hours of lying down.

3. Exercise early in your day.
Whether your day is during the daylight or night hours, exercise early and not too close to bedtime. Your body needs time to wind down and relax before it can get ready for sleep. If you exercise too close to bedtime, you make it harder to do that.

4. Check your medications.
As a nurse, you know that not only do some medications help you sleep, but some keep you awake. If you take prescription medications, double check to see if one of the adverse effects is wakefulness. If so, you may want to speak with your doctor or pharmacist about adjusting the times you take them to work better with your sleep schedule, particularly if you are working rotations.

5. Use your bedroom only for sleeping and for sex.
In this day of being able to bring your life everywhere with you in the form of computers, netbooks and smart phones, it’s easy to forget that your bedroom should be your sanctuary. Having all the other parts of your life in there tells your body that the bedroom isn’t special. Keep your work and play out of the bedroom.

6. Make sure your room is ready for sleeping.
It may seem obvious that you need to darken your bedroom if you’re trying to sleep during the day, but if you’re having trouble sleeping at night, it could be that your room just isn’t dark enough. If you live in the city, street lights can shine a bit too brightly outside your bedroom window, or you may see the sweep of car headlights as they turn around your corner. Your best bet? Invest in blackout curtains and make it really seem like night in your room.

If you have a bright digital clock, consider covering it as well. Those things can throw off quite a bit of light in a dark room.

7. Don’t let your room get too warm.
This is a mistake many people make. They’re cold when they go to bed so they put up the heat in the room to compensate. The problem is, as you sleep, the room stays hot and this can actually wake you up. If your room is cool, you may want to consider a few other ways to be warmer aside from getting a thicker quilt. Try wearing socks to bed, warming up your bed with a heating pad or hot water bottle (make sure you turn off the heating pad or that it has an automatic “off” function), or invest in an electric blanket or heating underpad, which goes under your sheets. This way, you can be warm, but the ambient air stays cool.

8. Check your bedding.
Do you remember the story about the Princess and the Pea? If you’re having trouble staying asleep, you could be writing a sequel to the story: The Nurse and the Wrinkle.

Bedding linens are not cheap. Because they’re “just sheets,” we tend to spend as little as possible when buying them. But consider this: If you spend six to eight hours per night (or day) in bed, that’s 42 to 56 hours per week, 168 to 224 hours per month or 2,184 to 2,912 hours per year you’re on those sheets! Isn’t your sleep worth a few more pennies a week? Buy the best sheets that feel comfortable to you, which means going for the higher thread counts. In the winter, you may want to invest in flannel sheets. The point is to sleep on what’s comfortable for you, instead of waking up because you keep rubbing against a pull or a pill in the sheet.

While we’re on the subject of sheets, how old is your mattress? Mattresses aren’t meant to last forever, and our needs for soft versus firm change as do our bodies. Maybe you should take a look at what’s available or invest in a mattress top that will change the firmness without switching the whole thing. And finally, your pillow. Your pillow is an important part of your sleep system, too. Your pillow should comfortably support your neck, no matter what position you sleep in. But you may not have the right pillow for your body and your sleep habits.

9. Address bothersome bed partners.
Do you have a partner who snores? Does she toss and turn? Does he pull off all the covers? These are all things that can make sleep difficult. One solution for the covers is to have two quilts or blankets on the bed: one for him and one for her. Earplugs may help the snoring solution. Hogging the bed could even mean a partner needs to sleep on another bed or in another room. If your bed partner is a pet and his sleeping habits are waking you, it may be time to consider letting Fluffy or Fido sleep in another part of the house.

10. Don’t force it.
Sometimes, sleep just doesn’t come, no matter how much we need it. If you haven’t fallen asleep after 20 or 30 minutes, get up and out of bed. Leave the room and do something quiet, such as reading or listening to soft music. Don’t do anything stimulating like watching TV or checking email. Stay quiet and calm. After a while, try going back to bed again. The trick is for your body to associate the bed with sleep, not with wakefulness.

References: cdc.gov/sleep/

ajt | Veer

Are you ready to take the NCLEX? Here are 10 questions from a wide mixture of topics to see how well you’ve covered your ground. Get yourself a cup of coffee, make yourself comfortable and see how you do!

Study material provided by NCLEX-RN Exam Prep:

Pearson IT Certification is a publishing imprint born of a tradition of proven learning tools and educational training materials such as NCLEX-RN Exam Prep (now in its second edition) that have helped generations of certification exam candidates succeed. Tapping into the exciting new opportunities provided by the technology advances of online learning and web-based services, Pearson has created a suite of products and solutions that address the learning, preparation and practice needs of a new generation of certification candidates. Pearson IT Certification delivers learning formats ranging from books to online learning and practice services, network simulators and video training.

Image: moodboard Photography | Veer

If the role of a nurse is to teach patients and the public about healthy lifestyles, is it possible for an overweight or obese nurse to be an effective nurse?

We know all too well that many of the chronic health issues seen today in the United States, including type 2 diabetes and hypertension, are related to diet and lifestyle. We’re taught in nursing school to encourage healthy lifestyles and teach patients and the public how to stay healthy.

And yet we’re guilty of not walking the walk.

A study published in May 2008 in the Journal of American Academy of Nurse Practitioners found that more than half of 760 nurses surveyed in six states were overweight or obese. When asked about issues with losing weight, 53 percent of the nurses in the overweight/obese group stated that although they recognized they should lose weight, they didn’t have the motivation to do so.

Why Nurses Aren’t Motivated
It’s not always easy to get motivated to do something you know you should do. Losing weight is generally on that list. For a nurse, undertaking a lifestyle change required to lose weight may take more work and effort than it might for someone who works regular hours and in a less stressful environment.

Irregular hours mean irregular eating times and perhaps difficulty squeezing in adequate amounts of exercise. If you haven’t planned ahead for meals and snacks, the only food available may not be what a dietitian would recommend for weight loss and health.

Since extra weight can contribute to illness and perhaps lost workdays, could the workplace, which gives nurses the erratic schedules and high stress levels, be responsible for a nurse’s lack of health?

Does Obesity Mean Incompetence?
Undoubtedly, a nurse’s skills have nothing to do with her body size. No matter who she is, her knowledge depends on three pounds, the average weight of a human brain. Retaining, assessing and processing information are no different between a nurse who weighs 120 pounds and one who weighs 180 pounds.

But what of the physical work? Nurses who are mildly to moderately overweight may not have difficulty with the physical aspect of nursing, but the heavier or obese nurses may not be so lucky. That is a generalization, of course, but usually, the larger the person, the more effort it takes to perform a physical task like running up the stairs to answer a cardiac arrest code. When a nurse is out of shape, she is also more prone to injury.

Patients and family members may not consciously be aware of it, but when they see the nurses who care for them, they make observations about the nurses’ behavior and appearance. If a doctor recommends a calorie-reduced diet or other restrictive diet, the nurse is the one who generally must answer questions and be available for patient teaching if the dietitian isn’t. To be honest, it’s not that different from the days when a doctor, smoking a cigarette in his office, would tell his patient that he should stop smoking because it wasn’t good for him.

In the study mentioned above, 93 percent of overweight nurses recognized when a patient was struggling with obesity, However, only 24 percent of those nurses pursued the topic of obesity with those patients. This is a striking finding considering nurses are the frontline in healthcare. The people whom patients often turn to for advice and help are nurses.

Change Is Possible
Nurses everywhere are making lifestyle changes. For example, Rosemarie Hernandez Jeanpierre, a Los Angeles–area LPN, became a spokesperson for healthy living, telling her story to major magazines and newspapers about how she dropped 110 pounds. Rosemarie, now a regular marathoner, undoubtedly started her weight loss journey with small goals—the kind that any nurse or patient can apply to his or her lifestyle.

Do you think a nurse’s weight can have a negative effect on her work?