Author Archives: jiarna

For many years I have been dismissive of the trend towards what I call “cookbook practice”.  This is clinical practice in which all the decisions are pre-set, and the clinician just fills in the blanks and follows the resulting algorithm for treatment or referral.  My objection was based on the idea that clinical judgement isContinue reading “Cookbook clinical practice”

Yesterday I had the dubious pleasure of having an appointment to discuss my blood pressure control.  I spoke with a Registered Nurse, a renal specialist, and a dietician.  It seems that I have reached a plateau in my use of medications, currently at 4 tablets per day.  Now the focus is on shifting the lardContinue reading “Losing weight”

I recently accepted an invitation to speak to a group of staff at TCH about critical thinking in clinical practice. The attached file is the one I used for the presentation. …  Well, that was the plan anyway.  Seems the file didn’t attach!  Maybe this will work instead:  Try this link

I have an app on my iPhone that tells me that we go on holidays in 38 days.  In the Northern Territory we get 4 weeks school holidays in the middle of the year, so this is when our family tries to go on a big trip. This year the plan is to go toContinue reading “Holidays are coming!”

Claire is having her first friend’s sleepover for a long time, maybe 2 years or more.  The girls had fun dancing to the Wii, playing various console games, making a campfire in the backyard, making soup over the fire, playing hide-and-seek, eating home-made pizza, and generally having a lot of fun. Now at 1:40 am they are having their showers andContinue reading “Sleepover”

For a long time, I have highly valued rational thinking.  At school I was strongly attracted to the rational disciplines – mathematics, science, chemistry, biology, physics and so on.  Conversely, I was repelled by the fuzziness and subjectivity of humanities and the arts, in which the same piece of work can get different (sometimes vastly different) marks fromContinue reading “Rational thinking”

To pass the time on night shift, I was having a discussion with a colleague about various things affecting the nursing profession.  We covered a lot of things, and one of them was leadership.  It is sometimes (or often?) said that nursing suffers from a lack of leadership.  What does that mean?  What is leadershipContinue reading “Leadership”

I don't know if this would work, or have consequences I haven't thought of, but I think all social security money should be via the Basics Card. I don’t mean pensions and the like, but income support type payments like unemployment benefits and student payments. As a socialist society, we have a responsibility to supportContinue reading “Basics card – some thoughts”

Today’s project was to improve the accessibility of our yard for Anita’s electric wheelchair.  A few weeks ago, I concreted a slab across under the gates to stop the dogs wriggling under the gates and getting onto the street.  This made it impossible for Anita to get out with her chair unless I was aroundContinue reading “A bit of concrete”

There have been times that I have wondered if it is better to buy a new 4WD rather than fix up the old one.  These times usually coincide with being covered with oil and grease, skinning my knuckles and swearing underneath the old one.  Fortunately, or not as the case may be, I usually feel OK aboutContinue reading “Old or new?”