Module 5 - Decision Making

I consider myself good at making important decisions. The irony in this is that I'm actually pretty lousy at making small decisions. Important decisions usually have some amount of data or information associated with them that allows for comparison. When you are making the comparison you can give weight or credence to one aspect over another. A system of analysis can be put into place that ranks the data on importance and pertinence leading you to eliminate some choices and promote others as you ultimately make a final decision.

Small decisions on the other hand are problematic. I can almost never make up my mind (for example) on which restaurant  I ought to eat at without resorting to something like a coin toss. (By the way, if you grab what you think is a penny it behooves you to verify that it actually has a 'heads' and a 'tails' otherwise, as it turns out, you haven't made any real progress). I think this is because everything is weighted fairly equally in small decisions where bigger decisions actually have parts with some weight behind them. Equally weighted 'big' decisions are the stuff moral dilemmas are made up of.

From a clinical standpoint I realized that I have no significant objection to 'cookbook' medicine as the use of algorithms and decision systems is sometimes called. I think the competent, confident clinician can use their clinical judgement and be guided rather than threatened by the additional support provided by these systems. It was however, a bit of a wakeup call for me reading about Heuristics and Biases because I tend to be a very intuitive person when I have to make rapid decisions and according to our reading the majority of individuals don't actually 'get it right' when they rely on  these decision makine shortcuts; makes me want to brush up on my formal logic and be a little more careful in my critical thinking. This is not to say that all decsions should only be made in a logical fashion, but when it comes to important snap decisions I could probably be a little more prepared.

Unit 4 (and four weeks to go but whose counting?...)

There is a certain amount of symmetry that I felt just had to be acknowledged in the timing of this particular blog post. Really the fact that there is only 4 weeks and 3 days, 2 modules and 1... (well I'm sure there is one of something left this semester related to this class) also had to be pointed out. There. Pointed.

This weeks topic is two-fold. We want to have a short dialogue about the role of teaching in our profession and we also want some input on mobile devices (read: smart phones). Apparently I have Algernon in my pocket tonight, I can't think of any other reason why I'm speaking in the plural here... So, on to teaching.

My current professional role is as a team-lead on an inpatient psychiatry unit, and as a staff nurse in an ED. As a team lead I have been assigned to mentor 5 of the staff nurses so I assist them with their goals and encourage them to improve their clinical knowledge etc. This involves some teaching as does the primary role of a team-lead on any unit - putting out fires. This requires the ability to educate patients, family members and nursing staff as the primary strategy for defusing a situation. In the ED I get to provide ongoing education to my patients: the reason for a particular therapy, the interpretation (read: plain language) of their diagnostics, appropriate follow up, medications, etc. The truth is there isn't any nursing role that I can think of that doesn't require some teaching in some fashion even the occasional  nurse in the middle of nowhere who gets elected to be the County Coroner probably has some obligation to public health teaching (although technically you don't need any medical background to be a Coroner so technically it wouldn't be a nursing job, even if you were a nurse... Moving on...)

And on that note... on to 'mobile devices'. Just a quick reminder for anyone who needs it (or if you just need a good laugh) this is my phone. I'm baby-stepping into the 21st century and just added texting to my plan. I'm steeling myself for a data-plan addition this fall and then will embrace assimilation by the Borg having the internet in my pocket.

My informatics class has a 'Mobile Device' wiki. Right now it looks like a large directory of sites without much text, but they look worth using for some research.

Check out my poll on the right side of this page and help a guy out by giving me some input. If you select Droid and have a model I should seriously consider leave me a comment with your suggestion. If you select 'or...' please let me know what I'm missing out on by not considering it. If your name is CeCe please only vote for the IPhone once. I promise to count it as 10 votes if you leave me a comment (or at least leave me a comment saying how many times you voted eh?).