What I Wish I Knew: Potassium-K Lab Value Levels

For resources to help you master Potassium and ALL the lab values, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at NURSING.com/labvalues.

 

What do bananas, avocados, and kale all have in common?

Potassium!

For more resources to help you understand Potassium, Hyperkalemia and Hypokalemia, click here:

What role does it play in the body?

What’s a normal range level for potassium?

And what happens when potassium levels are too low or too high?

On a shift early in my career, while I was still being oriented to the unit, I held tight to that rule of NEVER pushing IV potassium even when my preceptor was providing instructions that conflicted with that big rule. Here is that story...

For resources to help you master ABGs and ALL the LabVales, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at    NURSING.com/LabValues.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about ABGs including gas exchange, acidosis, alkalosis (metabolic and respiratory), normal lab value ranges, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX for arterial blood gases.     Our gas exchange nursing care plan covers impaired gas exchange nursing management, impaired gas exchange interventions, impaired gas exchange diagnosis, etc.      Excerpt:   

This patient’s lungs were so bad, gas exchange had to take place outside of his body... Learning to read ABGs, and understanding what to do with that information is a very important skill for any nurse, but particularly a cardiovascular ICU nurse. 

Hi I am Nurse Abby, and I loved working in the cardiovascular ICU - that was truly one of my favorite nursing jobs. Today I want to share with you the story of one of my MORE complicated patients.

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about distributive shock including distributive shock pathophysiology, distributive shock definition, types of distributive shock, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX on distributive shock nursing.     Our distributive shock nursing care plan covers distributive shock nursing management, distributive shock interventions, distributive shock diagnosis, etc.      Excerpt:   

This week I opened up some old nursing school notes, and I started remembering how hard nursing school really was!  

I remember, in particular, getting a little confused between the different types of shock.  

When I was studying distributive shock I found one key 🔑 point that actually cleared up a lot of the misunderstandings and confusion.  That started to really turn things around for me in nursing school!

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics, we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about coronary artery disease including coronary artery disease pathophysiology, coronary artery disease symptoms, coronary artery disease treatment, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX on coronary artery disease nursing.     Our coronary artery disease nursing care plan covers coronary artery disease nursing management, coronary artery disease interventions, coronary artery disease diagnosis, etc.      Excerpt:    "One afternoon I got a phone call from Todd - our content director here at NURSING.com.  

Hey man, so uh, just letting you know that I’m at the hospital being admitted. I’m having a heart attack, so I probably won’t be in tomorrow."

 

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about heart failure (CHF)  including: heart failure pathophysiology, heart failure pharmacology (heart failure medications), heart failure symptoms heart failure treatment, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX for heart failure nursing.     Excerpt:   "So let me tell you about this patient of mine.  They had just come out of heart surgery for what is referred to as the ROSS Procedure.  Part of this procedure requires the surgeon to reattach the coronary arteries to the aorta. While reattaching them, they were accidentally sutured closed. "

 

For resources to help you master Cardiac topics we have a FREE Cheatsheet Download at  NURSING.com/heart.   At NURSING.com you can learn everything you need to know as a nurse about agina including: angina symptoms, anginal pharmacology, the difference between stable and unstable angina, and more.     We also cover key concepts for NCLEX for angina nursing.       Excerpt:    ". . . it wasn't my patient that I should have been worried about

When my patient's son said he wasn't feeling right, it would have been easy to assume it was because of the stress he was under. 

He was visiting his sick mom . . . in the ICU nonetheless.    

But something just didn’t feel right"

 

ICU Nurses- Voices for the Voiceless For more on cardiac care to help you in nursing school visit 

NURSING.com/heart

Roughly 1 out of every 3 patients in the Intensive Care Unit, on average, are unable to communicate. Because of this, the role of an ICU nurse stretches far beyond providing medical care alone, but also acting as an advocate, or a voice for the voiceless to ensure that these patient’s needs, rights, and wishes are heard, recognized and respected. In doing so, these warriors in scrubs essentially embody the very essence of healthcare: compassion, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to patient welfare.

Welcome to the NURSING Family, we call it the most supportive nursing cohort on the planet. At NURSING.com, we want to help you save time in nursing school as we take you from discouraged and stressed to motivated and passionate with clear and concise, must-know information to help you pass your tests and improve your grades, so that you can focus on becoming an amazing nurse. YOU CAN DO THIS! Check out our freebies and learn more at: (www.nursing.com)

 

For more Carditis and the heart just visit NURSING.com/heart.  

Did you know that the average human heart beats 100,000 times a day, pumping 2,000 gallons of blood?

Now, imagine if this vital pump was under threat from, pericarditis, myocarditis, or endocarditis and couldn’t pump effectively.

In this episode we will look at the importance of understanding carditis and an easy way that I used in nursing school to remember the area affected by each type; then, run through a quick scenario at the end to apply what we have learned.

Ever notice why some students embrace challenges, while others shy away?

Mindsets.

Your mindset might just change how you approach your goals in nursing school…

 

A fixed mindset: abilities are set.

A growth mindset: abilities develop.

• When challenges appear, your mindsets matter.

 

In nursing school, challenges are constant.

• A student with a fixed mindset avoids challenges.

• One with a growth mindset thrives when challenges arise.

 

Having a growth mindset is the secret sauce for success. 

Putting effort into a fixed mindset is useless.  It's time to shift your thinking.

 

When considering success and failure, success in a fixed mindset is about validation, but in a growth mindset, it's about learning. Failure isn't a setback; it's an opportunity for growth.

 

As a nursing student, adopt a growth mindset: see challenges as learning opportunities, embrace mistakes, and persist. Grow your knowledge and expand your growth mindset with NURSING.com.

 

Does insulin save lives, or does it take lives?

Bodies that don’t produce enough insulin shut down, but if too much insulin is in the system it can be just as disastrous. As nurses, we are often tasked with administering insulin to our patients. When done incorrectly it can be life-threatening.  For years I was a member of the code team, and count

• WHEN I was a new nurse I remember trying to keep track of the patients and insulin action times and the dosage times and everything else . . . I felt like I was drowning trying to keep it all straight in my head - I was both stressed and scared at the same time
• THAT’S WHEN I copied all the insulin peak and onset times down in my notebook.
• THIS HELPED me feel more relaxed and avoid my patient coding!

If you want to see my notes they are at NURSING.com/cheatsheets.

Honestly, I still use the cheatsheet today!

What we cover in this episode: 

• what is insulin
• understanding how insulin works
• what does insulin do
• types of insulin
• onset, peak, duration of insulin

I almost killed my patient.

In the days after my scary event I spent hours and hours thinking through what I had done.  

I knew my ABCs, I had prioritized everything I was supposed to, how could things have gone so horribly wrong…  

See our full lesson on Prioritization at NURSING.com.  

And I realized that I had overlooked a very important part of my ABCs.  

It wasn’t the A - airway, the B - breathing, or the C - circulation 

What was left, what did I miss?

What I violated was Safety. 

That small little “s” at the end of my ABCs - Safety 

 

And I learned 3 Crucial Take-Aways 

1. ABCs are Priorities not Checklists! 

2. Don't be complacent about the s for Safety

3. Ask for help as soon as possible

 

See our full lesson on Prioritization at NURSING.com.