At risk for impaired religiosity

I was looking over my blogs and realizing that, well, the shine is off the proverbial apple. I had wanted a light touch, but it has evolved into a kind of banality that I blame entirely on the limitations placed upon the most precious of all commodities, personal free time. Nothing that can be done about it I suppose. Thanks for the continued patronage in spite of.

At this moment I am staring into the teeth of what will likely end up being another unmemorable weekend of more work than play. Although who would want to play in the scrotum clenching chill that has recently enveloped this region. It strongly dissuades one from going out except to collect only the most vital of necessities. And to think it isn't even really winter yet here. It will be some momentous task to make it through the coldest parts of the year, and I presume harder still to make it through the dark and frosty early morns that await me come January. So, me thinks its prime time for a rant.

As a nurse, one is expected to know a little bit about a lot of things from the jump. Once in the profession, your knowledge base specializes and is honed to a fine edge. You might not be able to diagnose like a doctor, but it appears you can eventually understand them and offer some input. In fact, there are a lot of things that doctors can do that we cannot. I dont begrudge them this right since they did go to school for a long time. However, somewhere along the line, nurses collectively determined that we ought to have our own diagnoses as well. The fact that they border on the ridiculous and flirt frequently with the inane is what truly ruffles me. We cannot say, for instance, that you have a breathing disorder, but we can say you are at risk for impaired breathing. We cannot say that you are anorexic, but can say that you are at risk for impaired nutrition. Some new ones I have come upon, and I shit you not as to there authenticity, are: energy field disturbance, risk for dysfunctional grieving, risk for impaired religiosity, risk for enhanced religiosity, and readiness for enhanced religiosity (where the readiness for impaired religiosity or the risk for dysfunctional religiosity (that one would be prevalent) is I dont know...........maybe the next NANDA update). How or why I would care about levels of religiosity or energy fields is beyond me, but I think it can be agreed upon that you cannot hope to be taken seriously if these are approved diagnoses. I might as well start reading patients' tea leaves or try to discern their aura to determine care. But maybe I am just at risk for impaired intellect from reading them in the first place.

To top off the enhanced ridiculosity (or risk of as the case may be) we are now supposed to incorporate 'cultural considerations' when writing up our care plans. What this means is that, based upon our discussions in class and with our clinical instructor, instead of walking into the room and assessing the patient based on their illness and various co-morbidities, we should assess them on their ethnic heritage as well. So, in essence, we focus not on the 98% of them that is primarily the same as everyone else and the fact that they are in a western hospital seeking medicine, but rather on the fact that the 2% of them that may be different. It is infuriating........but thats probably just my angry German/slavic heritage talking!

Off to grab some sour kraut and a beer before shuffling off to get some sleep so I am not at risk for impaired awakeness tomorrow.