How do you like Wild West look?

Looking nice always makes us feel good, so I decided to settle for nursing fashion today.

The medical uniform industry pretty much have every option of nursing scrubs and lab coats that can be used by nurses and doctors alike for work everyday. They can match different pieces to look fashionable, or even achieve a style featured in a magazines and runways. One great idea is the Wild West look featured by the clothing line Ralph Lauren. Check out the Ralph Lauren Wild West look below.

Here’s a set of items you can try to achieve that Wild West look. A chocolate-colored lab coat, white scrub top, and a khaki scrub pants. Forget about the tassels at the sides of the pants because that would be odd in a hospital setting, but concentrate on the fun result of mixing colors and uniform styles. Imagine a nice look resulting from tucking the white Landau scrub top in the khaki flare leg Cherokee scrub pants. And when worn over with the chocolate colored lab coat, you get the Wild West look that easy. A metal belt buckle will not be necessary. To complete the Wild West look ala medical uniforms, wear a pair of black or matching brown nursing shoes. This look is in fashion for the whole year.

Healing Gardens Help Hospital Staff Deal with Stress

Healing gardens work not just for patients but also for the hospital staff. For one, a beautiful garden doesn’t simply feed to human nature’s penchant for scenic places, but helps with our physical, psychological and emotional well being. That’s the reason why most nurses and doctors would take off their nursing uniforms for a while for a vacation in places where the scenic views are magnificent. The beauty of nature takes away stress and energizes people. And when they come back to work, the vacationers normally glow with notable radiance. Significantly, healing gardens in hospitals also provide therapeutic effect to the stressed health care workers while at work.

There are varieties of healing gardens, each mainly designed for the needs of patients. Specialty hospitals and clinics that deal with specific groups of patients can have healing gardens particularly structured for their therapeutic needs and physical capabilities. The types of healing gardens include psychiatric hospital gardens, children’s gardens, nursing home gardens, Alzheimer’s Treatment gardens, hospice gardens, gardens for the visually impaired, meditation gardens, enabling gardens, sensory gardens, and gardens for horticultural therapy.

Healing Garden at Franklin Memorial Hospital

Image from dailybulldog.com

Healthy Diet, A Need Often Neglected by Health Workers

Did you wonder why many of your colleagues were overweight when you first started working as a nurse? If not, maybe you were just too overwhelmed with the fact that you finally made it in the healthcare industry. But as months pass by, you noticed that you, too, are gaining weight as your nursing uniforms are starting to get too snug already. What seemed to be a mere sight is finally dawning in your mind; healthcare is afflicted with the rest of the world’s most acquired disease, obesity.

The reason for obesity epidemic among nurses is the lack of proper and healthy diet itself. It’s something that nurses cannot simply own due to the overwhelming tasks. Hearing complaints about not being able to take lunch is all too common. In fact, you would rather wonder if you know somebody was able to fully and regularly spend his or her lunch break over a healthy meal. In many cases, they’d only be given a few minutes to grab a donut, some cookies or pizza pie, and then, they’ll run back to their tasks again. It’s also normal for them to take their lunch one or two hours after their scheduled break time. Sometimes, they won’t even be able to eat at all.

How many times were you able to sit comfortably in the pantry during your lunch break? And can you name a handful of your coworkers who bring healthy veggies and fruits regularly? Were the resident doctors and nurses in your hospital even urged you to eat healthy?

More than anybody in hospitals, healthcare workers need to stay as healthy as ever because the patients, the patients’ loved ones, and their own families rely on them. It just so happen that their very job does not allow them that, an issue that is, well, too often overlooked. Sadly, these are the very same people who are trusted for care. When we know they don’t do well for their own health, should we be worried about our safety or does it undermine our nurses’ integrity as professionals?

In a country where nurses are outnumbered by patients, ensuring utmost health of healthcare workers is the least that hospital administrators can do. It might not be as huge as salary increase, but is sure gives a good dose of positive energy. And it’s a good thing that there are those who also work hard to promote healthy diet among healthcare professionals, and become role models themselves with their choice of food.

What’s the Next Big Thing?

2011 did a significantly fierce welcoming. Relentless raining caused floods and landslides in Australia, Brazil, Philippines and several other lands, claimed many lives and left people homeless. Snowstorms across America paralyzed businesses. Terrorists blew bombs in Russia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Earlier this week, Tunisia rocked the world when civil and political unrest broke out. Following the turmoil in the said country are violent protests against the government of Egypt. If there were positive things that came in with the new year, they were significantly minute when compared to all those huge dilemmas. Now, will the next big thing follow the same fierce tracks as the ones mentioned?

If you’re praying to all the gods for little better situations in the coming days, I’m trying to focus my sight on the beneficial things that are alreay available. Talking of the ill occurrences that are triggered by poverty and power-hungry tyrants is already sickening. So let’s talk about something that’s supposedly going to benefit all.

The next big thing should involve a great number of people, pushing them to take necessary steps to get into it. And just what is this big thing that would drive people just like that? Well, guys, it’s but the long standing issue on how to lose fat. Gone are the days of Atkins and south beach diet, or has it indeed been flushed away. Nah, I’m afraid not. But one thing’s for sure, they weren’t successful in encouraging nurses, even with the prospect of being able to fit in smaller sized nursing uniforms.

Okay. So, what’s the next big thing? The resistant starch foods. What is this so called resistant starch food? In the most understandable human language, resistant starch food simply point to food that does not digest in the small intestine. What does it do? The slow disintegration of starch makes a person feel full longer, and that helps curb the actual amount of calories being ingested. Essentially, adding resistant starch foods to your diet, or replacing some of your food items with these would have positive effects on your weight and overall health.

Resistant starch is commonly found in natural and unprocessed foods, most of which are barley, beans, cereals, fruits, brown rice and root crops. Commercial food products that contain resistant starch are also growing in number in the market already. They are found in breads and pastas. Now, if you’re a nurse and you dream of fitting nicely in fashion nursing uniforms, you might as well consider replacing cookies, donuts and chocolate cakes with resistant starch foods.

The problem goes beyond these nurses eating habits. It’s deeply rooted in the economic problem of the society, in general. You should see the real thing when you see the plates of the common people who cannot afford the kind of foods that are considered healthy.