I'm not very good at introductions, so I'll just state what I intend to do here (this may or may not happen, as I am homeschooling a 6-year-old and working full time as a registered nurse...and I am terrible at staying focused on a project; it is a wonder that I graduated college as bad as I am with sticking to anything).
However, apart from the obvious problem of having no real hobbies (again, hard to stick with any one objective), I have noticed that many people (nurses, and other healthcare professionals as well as the general population) have no idea what they are putting into their bodies when it comes to medication. They do not realize there are contraindications when putting one medication with another, and rely on their physicians a great deal more than they should because they do not know how pressed for time a physician can be and their primary care provider may have forgotten to tell them, "don't take X over the counter with Y prescription medication", or they may have missed a medication their patient was taking when looking at their charts.
I am not a snob when it comes to the differing levels of nursing staff, however, I can tell you that after going to college with many LPNs, they could definitely tell you that they did learn a few things they did not fully understand while in our RN program. The professional at your doctor's office assisting your doctor was likely NOT an RN. S/he was likely an LPN, or in many circumstances, a medical assistant. This does not mean they are ill educated (in fact, I have met many RNs I cannot believe graduated having so little understanding and knowledge of medication and procedure and some LPNs who blow me away with their knowledge). That said, I am fairly confident that I, as a registered nurse with much knowledge and desire to obtain knowledge, have a fairly proficient grasp on common medications and their mechanism, side effects, etc.
So, to get to the point, I have decided to write in my blog about common medications. It is a nurse's role to be the last person between the patient and a medication error. I will start with over-the-counter meds, and work my way through the popular, most prescribed meds, in particular: antidepressants. I say with no false modesty that I am not perfect when it comes to grammar and syntax (I am as good as I am educated; I took advanced English courses in high school and two English Comp courses in college). So I cannot guarantee I will write perfectly structured sentences and paragraghs, but I can assure you perfect spelling of all the important words.
My next post will be about over-the-counter pain medications: how they work, what is an appropriate dose, side effects with long and short term use, and which medication is right for each patient and why. Also, I would definitely appreciate any feedback concerning medications anyone would like to know more about.
