Your Guide to Becoming a Geriatric Nurse Practitioner

With the increase in life expectancy and an aging population, there is a growing need for specialized healthcare professionals who are dedicated to the healthcare needs of older adults. This has resulted in a new specialization in the nursing field referred to as GNPs – or - Geriatric Nurse Practitioners. The primary role of GNP nurses is to care for older patients and to assist them in overcoming health challenges they face with an intent to improve their quality of life. For this, they utilize all-inclusive functional and psycho social management strategies when dealing with health and illness.  

The Typical Duties of a Geriatric Nurse:

A Geriatric Nurse Practitioner treats and cares for older patients. The majority of older patients suffer from multiple ailments. That’s why GNPs need to always be on alert regarding their patient’s possible existing conditions by keeping record of new symptoms, and all drug interactions. As compared to a general practitioner, they are more likely to be involved in long-term care, prescribing physical therapies from time to time, and adjusting medications. 

Typical Healthcare Settings for Geriatric Nurses:

• Hospitals 
• Community and Government agencies
• Clinical practices,
• Hospice services
• Long-term care facilities
• Research universities
• Home Health Services
• Counseling centers

Besides the above-mentioned medical facilities, a geriatric nurse can also be employed in an outpatient clinic, a palliative care clinic, and serve as a consultant to private companies who are dedicated to the care of older patients. Working with these private companies calls for some travelling, as they need to visit the patient at their home, and then counsel the family members or primary care giver. 

Academic Qualifications and Credentials:

A nursing student aspiring to be a Geriatric Nurse needs to have a Bachelor’s degree in nursing or any other healthcare field from a recognized institute. After successfully completing their degree, they need to get their license to practice as an RN and then gain relevant experience in the field. After gaining this experience, they can pursue a PG course or specialization course in geriatric care. 

INSCOL offers one-year graduate certificate in Gerontology in partnership with Niagara College, Welland Campus Canada. Gerontology Program For IEN is designed for internationally educated nurses and she dslight on many essential concepts such as care planning, effective geriatric care, common cognitive challenges faced by older patients, and critical thinking & decision-making. 

Visit at inscol.com to explore the top nursing courses in Canada for international students.

Get Rid of Lower Body Fatigue with Compression Stockings

• Are you uncomfortable or in pain due to prolonged standing?
• Are you experiencing lower body fatigue?

Varicose veins and decreased levels of mental awareness are common for nurses. As a health care professional, however, a nurse can never afford to be mentally or physically tired.

This problem can be solved by stretching, sitting whenever possible, and even choosing a comfortable pair of shoes. Another way to decrease lower body fatigue is by wearing compression stockings.

How do compression stockings prevent lower body fatigue? They encourage venous return. Venous return can be encouraged by applying pressure to the lower extremities. This prevents varicose veins and alleviates fatigue.

Via: Thenurseteacher.com

Keep these three points in mind when you purchase a pair of compression stockings -

1. A nurse should wear the best fitting compression stockings for them. Since compression stockings come in different levels of tightness, nurses are urged to measure their legs before purchasing them.


2. Remember, not all stockings are dedicated to relieving fatigue. Compression stockings that are less than 10mmHg are not considered to be efficient. Compression stockings that are above 20mmHg might also prove to be somewhat uncomfortable. So, consider the range between 15 to 20mmHg only.


3. Before buying a pair of compression stockings, you need to know how to measure your legs. During the day, venous pooling is always a possibility. Therefore, the best time to measure legs is in the morning. What are the measurements you should take? Just measure the circumference of the bilateral ankle, the calves, and the thighs. Also, measure the length from the foot to the knee. If, however, you want to keep the length of the compression stockings to your thighs, just measure the length from your foot to your knee.

If you're planning to purchase compression stockings, keep these points in mind. To make sure a nurse is not distracted from doing his or her best at work, eliminating your lower body fatigue is crucial. Your health matters!

For more health tips for nurses, there are a number of blogs you can explore at INSCOL. If you are a Filipino nurse looking for an opportunity to make a career in countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK or the US, INSCOL offers the best nursing courses for international nurses.

How to Improve Communication in the Hospital

In the high-tech healthcare system, communication between doctors, nurses, and other staff members plays an important role. A hospital patient interacts with several healthcare providers - from doctors to nurses to technicians - and so on. Therefore, an effective flow of communication followed by team collaboration is important in ensuring patient safety.

Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers are expected to communicate and work together well. Here are some simple steps that can encourage doctors to communicate well with nurses and other co-workers -

Address the situation - To establish a communication culture it is important to address the situation at hand. Nurses need to assertively speak their mind and doctors need to cooperate with them. This not only helps nurses with their professional success, it is also essential for every patient’s well being. 

Friendly Environment - In any professional field, familiarity is valued more than formality. There is a need for creating a friendly workplace environment. Here, doctors and nurses cooperate and work together. In addition to this, the workplace environment needs to be open. This means that nurses and doctors can question each other’s decision-making without hesitation and without intimidation or fearing a negative outcome.

Focused Team Training Program - The most efficient method of establishing team collaboration is organizing team training programs. With team training programs, a culture of respect, accountability, trust and shared decision-making is encouraged. Here, constructive feedback is supported to minimize the risk of error, while improving every aspect of patient care. Through these programs, doctors meet other physicians and nurses they are working with and everyone learns each other’s names. From here, a healthy, professional relationship develops that lays the foundation for optimum patient care.

Practice Collaboration - A difference of opinion and conflict are inevitable parts of any workplace setting. Therefore, to work in collaboration, it is important to analyze the other person’s point of view, instead of immediately rejecting it. This kind of approach often works wonders and provides fresh insight or a solution to a problem. Plus, for the sake of patient safety, healthcare professionals need to work constantly to foster an environment that facilitates cohesion and collaboration.

Effective communication is vital in every field of business, profession, as well as in everyday living. If you have more tips that can help in improving communication while at work, please share them with us in the comments below. 

For nurses who are looking for opportunities to study and work abroad, INSCOL offers specialized nursing courses in top countries across the world. To learn about available graduate and post-graduate nursing programs, visit the website www.inscol.com.

5 Things That Only Nurses Understand Best

Nurses play a very important role in the healthcare system. They are often referred to as the heart of healthcare. Nursing is a vibrant profession and nurses play so many roles juggled into one. They act as a caregiver, communicator, patient advocate, and teacher. With so many roles and responsibilities, there are a few things that only nurses can truly understand. 

1. Life is Fragile - The average person experiences the tragedy of death only a few times in life. Whereas a nurse deals with death and illness on a regular basis. It isn’t wrong to say that a nurse fully understands how fragile life really is. Nurses hear and see the stories of people who were doing fine and then suddenly found themselves lying sick or on their death bed in the hospital. A nurse’s emotional ups and downs are very different from the ones experienced by other people.
2. Health is Wealth - Nurses treat many patients everyday that are sick from a food-related illness. Therefore, nurses understand very well the importance of a healthy diet and good health. Preaching to patients the importance of proper nutrition and exercise is a common practice among doctors and nurses.
3. Value of Listening - A nurse is an effective listener and knows well the power of listening and showing empathy. Nurses spend more time with patients than doctors do. They always listen to patient stories, problems, and other concerns. Sometimes, even more than medicine, a patient needs someone who listens and shows empathy. This is another way that nurses play a critical role.
4. Seeing the Human Body From a Clinical Perspective - As a nurse, seeing people naked is part of their everyday job. Nurses care for many patients, giving them sponge baths, catheters, and at times, also helping clean waste from their body. Nurses learn to see the human body from a clinical perspective.
5. Joy of Seeing Your Patient Recover - Each job has its own set of rewards. In the field of nursing, seeing patients recover, or leaving the hospital healed, is the most rewarding part of their job. Nurses feel satisfied when they see a patient going home with a big smile. Being part of that healing process makes it even more special.

The life of a nurse is challenging. Nurses are always supposed to be ready for the unexpected. Because of their profession, nurses understand life from a different perspective that regular people aren’t able to fully comprehend. 

Learning is a part of every nurse’s career and nurses do it each day through practical experiences. Continuing education, even after working as a nurse, can take you to even greater heights in your career. With good job prospects, better earnings and growth, continuing education for nurses is always a great decision. To specialize in a field of your choice, INSCOL offers specialized nursing programs for internationally educated nurses. To learn more about the available courses, visit at www.inscol.com.

Meal Planning Tips for Busy Nurses

Nurses are well aware of the importance of eating a well-balanced diet. However, nurses live in a fast-paced and hectic working environment. This environment often encourages unhealthy eating habits. If you want to follow a healthy diet, here are some meal planning tips and tricks that can put you back on the right track.

1. Plan ahead - Nurses work long shifts and often don’t have enough time to prepare healthy meals. It is recommended that nurses take time from their busy schedule to plan meals in advance during their day off. Create a meal plan that incorporates easy cooking and is also healthy. Go for easy, healthy recipes.
   For example - Saute green veggies, prepare a salad; include some whole grain breads, brown rice etc. When you already have a meal plan in place, it will take less time to cook. Aside from recipes, you can also use some creative meal planning templates available online. 
2. Making a Grocery list - Before you head out to grocery shop, make a grocery list. When you go with a grocery list in your hand, it stops you from buying impulsively. Include more whole foods, fresh vegetables, fruits, and dairy products on your list. 
3. Carry healthy snacks to the workplace - When working for long hours or critical shifts, there is the possibility of missing meals. In these situations, there is a risk of hypoglycemia, making nurses tired and grouchy. Instead of randomly munching on chips, pastries, and junk food, try to carry healthy snacks. Carry items like nuts, fruits, and salads. They are convenient to carry and are healthy for a quick munch at work.
4. Get creative - Eating the same food every week can get boring. It also results in an increased temptation for junk food. To avoid this, try including a new dish every week. You can find many recipes on the internet and in books that are easy to prepare. This is a great way to keep both your taste buds and your body happy and healthy!
5. Stocks up on good food - A nurse’s schedule is often changing. Many situations arise when you need to fill a gap at the last moment.
   For example - Someone calls in sick, or urgent work comes up. Under these circumstances, you need to cover someone’s shift. Even though these are unforeseen situations, you can still stop yourself from turning to junk and unhealthy foods. Why not stock up on frozen foods? Frozen foods are quick to make and can also have many health benefits like cancer prevention. 

Being creative is a valuable trait for nurses. It can help them to manage things like meals while working. If you are in the nursing profession and are finding it difficult to handle your personal or professional life, share your experience with us in the comments below. Let us try to find you some relief!

If you are a nurse and want to pursue a nursing program for international nurses in countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and the UK, INSCOL is the perfect location for you. 

5 Tips to Select the Right Nursing College Abroad

Are you looking for a reputed college abroad to progress in your nursing career? If yes, then we have done the ground work for you. 

Here are five tips that will guide you to take a wise decision in choosing the right college

1. Accreditation - Check that the college you have selected offers well-recognized Graduate & Postgraduate Courses. Select the college that has been accredited by NLAC (National League Accreditation Commission) or CCNE (Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education). Accreditation ensures that the school program has been thoroughly reviewed and approved by experts. It also ensures that the curriculum offered by the nursing college meets the standards set by the expert panel. Stay away from colleges that claim to offer recognized certifications, but are not accredited.
2. Collaboration With Leading Hospitals - Majority of the colleges collaborate with leading hospitals to provide clinical exposure to nursing students. This gives the students an opportunity to practice clinical skills and gain hands-on clinical experience.
3. Access to Lab Facilities – Another important thing to consider is the ‘lab facilities’ in the college. Check if the selected college has enough classrooms and labs to provide the required clinical experience for the nursing students.
4. Student-to-faculty Ratio- Make sure the nursing college you choose has the minimum student-to-faculty ratio for classroom instruction so that attention to individual students is guaranteed.
5. Clinical Rotations - Clinical rotations are one of the most valuable aspects of nursing experience. They vary according to the kind of facility chosen for the students. Generally, these are acute care hospitals or public health agencies and outpatient facilities. Thus, ask for information regarding where the school conducts such rotations.

If you are aspiring for an advanced degree in nursing or thinking of having a nursing career overseas, then you can choose from a wide range of Nursing Programs for International Nurses offered by INSCOL. INSCOL is a leading provider of PG courses in partnership with leading universities in Canada | USA | AUS | NZ and UK. 

The courses offered include Palliative Care, Clinical & Critical Care, Acute Complex Care, Leadership & Management Programs and many more. If you want to know more about the available courses abroad to progress in your career and to settle, visit http://www.inscol.com.

His Story – A Message Straight to You from a Critical Care Nurse-to-be

More precisely, here's a video sent to us by a full-of-life critical care nurse-to-be (at that time) to an individual who's dreaming to pursue a career in Critical Care Nursing, in short, for you.

We found this video from the archives and we really felt like sharing the career prospects of the Critical Care Nursing Program. It is  for messages and greetings like these,which keep us going and make us feel proud.

It's funny how most of the students find the 'thick' books to be 'toxic', as Dino Martin Gako – a lively INSCOL student pursuing Critical Care Nursing Course at Niagara finds the book of his curriculum a 'thick' book and thus to be 'toxic'!

Certainly, it's a warning for you to be ready to go through the hardships that will help you get a successful career abroad. Nothing worth having will be as easy as a walk in the park, after all!

Here is 'His' Story –

 

Of course, you can hear the happiness in his voice. Dino certainly knew that once he'll complete the Critical Care Nursing program, he’d go places.

From the career prospective, factually, the projected job growth as per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will be 19% for the registered nurses, in the year 2012-2022. Also the median salary as per the statistics, is around $67,490 per year (for the year 2015).

As far as Canada is concerned, Critical Care Nurses are one of the most sought after professionals. You'll be qualified to be a leader and a team player in critical care settings, which includes intensive care units, surgical intensive care units and cardiac care units too.

Are you looking around for the specialized nursing programs for Filipino nurses? Visit at Inscol.com
Keep shining on!

Until next time.