Show Me the Money and I Will Show You Why That CVP Line Stopped Transducing

It really grinds my gears when entrepreneurially minded nurses seek to monetize assorted tutorials for learning clinical skills. Theoretical nursing in an academic environment is ridiculously overpriced and I understand the plight of whippersnapperns facing exorbitant school loans, but bedside procedures should be passed along  with a sense of pride and  respect for the history of nursing. The sense of well being gained by seeing a young nurse confidently perform a procedure you showed her how to do is priceless. It's your extension in time and will bring a warm feeling to your foolish heart when you are old like me.

Image courtesy Maklay 62

Diploma schools were big on ceremony and pageantry with ascent through the nursing hierarchy. Youngsters today may have dollar signs in their eyes, but for us, the ultimate reward was that coveted pin. Dreams of walking down the aisle  with our Nightengale Lamps leading the way to receive our pins were what we thought of in troubled times. Thinking about money was distant in our minds and any mention of financial gain earned you a speedy exit from the program. It was just palin wrong headed thinking and an egregious example of putting your needs before others.

How do you unite nurses from different generations with different values? One  way was  passing on  clinical skills from experienced nurse to novice. The scrub nurse tricks of the trade that I learned from my nemesis, Alice, are precious beyond any means of monetary compensation. I didn't learn how to load a sponge stick one handed or count out ten 4X4s in a nanosecond by paying money to watch a video. No, she never smiled or encouraged me like the glad handing  nursing procedure hustlers selling their videos. Humiliation was a powerful motivator.

I shudder to think of the consequences incurred by  offering a Greatest Generation nurse money for procedure tutorials. They could survive on next to nothing because working as a nurse was a reward in of itself. Their  notion of self care was a 15 minute nap in the lounge after being called in for a middle of the night case and working 9 hours the next day. Life was meant to be difficult and nurse's were destined to a life of poverty. I admired them with unbounded abandon and was a mere sissy compared to their resolve. I wish a few of them were around to deal with today's nurse monetizers.

CVP lines were in their infancy when I was practicing and I made it my mission to learn all I could about central line procedures. Obtaining a central pressure involved a carpenter's level, a three way stop cock, and a manometer. Connecting them to a transducer opened up a Pandora's Box of problems and involved endless fiddling for a reading of dubious value. They were a real pain to deal with. I was thinking of producing a video explaining some of the pitfalls of CVP lines and possible solutions. Of course this is going to cost you, but, in all honesty, I would rather sell a kidney than profit from teaching the next generation of nurses. We are all in this together so let's pause and think about the needs  of novice  nurses before whoring out something sacred like the mastery of bedside procedures.