NICU NURSES 101
About the Author
Welcome to my blog! My name is Rachel Ramnarine and I am from East Brunswick, New Jersey. I am currently a freshman at the University of Miami and on the nursing track, with the hope of becoming a NICU nurse.
Blog 1 (February 2, 2020)
Intro
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you got older? For me, at 4 years old, I wanted to be an astronaut. But changed very quickly. Growing up as the middle child with an older sister and younger brother, I was always looking after them and “moming” them. Thats when I realized I needed to major in something that would give me the ability to help others since I loved seeing others so happy. A NICU nurse was just the right path for me.
About two years ago, my grandma began to get very sick. I felt extremely helpless. I was constantly in the hospital with her and was always overhearing doctors and nurses use all these medical terms that I was oblivious too. After a while of being frustrated because I did not know what was going on with her, I began to do my research. There were many nights I would go home and search and search about different symptoms and illnesses just so the next day I could go back and be able to properly communicate with the doctors and my family. Every nurse that came in and out of my grandmas hospital room were always so positive. Not one ever came in without a smile on; And seeing my grandma’s face light up when she saw her favorite nurse walk in was priceless.
With the passing of my grandma, I realized nursing is the field meant for me. It’s hard sitting back and not knowing what’s going on and not being able to help people who are extremely sick. That’s why I would like to become a NICU nurse. A NICU nurse is a nurse who works in the “Neonatal Intensive Care Unit”. They care for newborns who need round the clock attention. These young patients are typically born prematurely or with some type of illness or developmental defect, which can sometimes lead to long stays in the NICU.
NICU technology has come a long way. In the 50s-70s most sickly and premature infants were sent home from the hospital without any special treatment. Unfortunately many of these children did not survive past their first birthday. That was the cause of many deaths because premies weren’t ready to be released. In the 90s, the increase of technology to care for premature infants gave hope to babies who in previous decades may have been considered lost causes. Babies as young as twenty three weeks gestational age and as small as 500 grams- were successfully treated. Fortunately, the survival rate for babies born at twenty-three weeks gestational age is now at 33%; babies born at twenty-four weeks have a survival rate of about 65%. Fortunately, survival without any major health complications has also increased. .
Unfortunately, I feel like registered nurses are being under looked. People don’t realize how important nurses are to the medical field. If you take a step back, being a NICU nurse is probably the most rewarding job. NICU nurses are constantly there for the families during these hard times while making such an impact on these little tiny lives that are in their hands.
Blog Post 2
The article by Paul Offit’s “The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements,” is has an interesting take on how vitamins can essentially cure many diseases. This article is about a scientist with the name of Linus Pauling. In 1970, Pauling published an article saying that if people start to take 3,000 milligrams of vitamin C everyday, then they would be able to get rid of a common cold. However, scientists tried to testify and they could not. Every study that came out after Pauling’s theory proved him completely wrong. However, Pauling refused to believe that that he was wrong. Even when Pauling himself “appeared before the media with obvious cold symptoms, he said he was suffering from allergies” (pg 5). Pauling did everything to deny the fact that his theory was false and that vitamins cant actually cure colds. But again, Pauling was not stopped. He did some more research and next came to the conclusion that vitamin C can cure cancer. Pauling claimed that “vitamin C would cause a 10 percent decrease from cancer” (pg 5). But, Pauling in 1977 went even further with that claim and stated that “ 75 percent can be achieved with vitamin C alone” (pg 5). Because there is still no exact treatment for cancer or a drug to prevent cancer, a doctor with the name of Charles Moertel decided to test Pauling’s theory. Of course, Moertel realized that vitamin C is clearly not the cure to cancer. But, again, Pauling did not stop there. He then began to make excuses that Moertel didn’t has to test the excess amount of vitamin c on patients who never underwent any sort of treatment before. Even after then, Moertel still concluded that it was still a fail. However, Pauling continued and came out and said that id you take vitamin C and a massive dose of vitamin A and vitamin E and selenium and beta-carotene, that could do more than preventing colds and treating cancer; it could cure heart diseases, mental illnesses and so many more deadly diseases. At this time, nobody believed Pauling. It was proven many times that all his theories are just false and vitamins cant actually cure cancer or other life threatening diseases. With that being said, Pauling went on and on and tried to convince everyone that vitamin c specifically is the cure to many life threatening diseases. In the end, unfortunately, Pauling’s wife died with stomach cancer and he later died of prostate cancer. So that goes to show exactly that cancer simply cannot be cured by vitamins. I found it interesting how determined Pauling was. Its strange that he kept on trying to make the case that vitamins are essentially the cure to everything. It was almost funny how hard Pauling was trying. Also I find it strange how doctors even believed Pauling at one point. Having a science background or not, I feel as though vitamins being the cure of cancer sounds very ridiculous. I get that scientists push their theories because they are all trying to find a cure for something but Pauling pushed it way to far. Even after doctors tried telling him that his theories are false, he got mad and made up excuses. I am currently a nursing major and I don’t think this really related to my field. But it does relate to doctors and scientist who are trying to find a cure for cancer. Hopefully, once scientists and doctors find cures for different diseases, they publish it and take the feedback they receive and use it to make their drug better. It is important that scientists take feedback and criticism because that is how one gets closer and closer to come to conclusions. If you don’t take feedback and criticism, scientists would just running in circles and never get anywhere in making discoveries. Overall, I like this reading. I thought it was very entertaining just to see Pauling try so incredible hard with something that seem so irrationally wrong.
After doing some research on my own, I found a very interesting video. The statistics shown were super intriguing.
Blog Post 3
https://infograph.venngage.com/view/67dd61b1-21e9-415b-bb12-95f5d33d4b90
Rachel's Blog 