Beyond the bloody mess: hematologic assessment.

Hematologic assessment is part of the routine assessment of acute and critically ill patients. Nurses must be aware of the reference ranges for complete blood cell counts and common coagulation profiles. A case study is presented of an elderly patient, taking warfarin for atrial fibrillation, who falls and sustains a head laceration.

Evidence-based practice habits: putting more sacred cows out to pasture.

For excellence in practice to be the standard for care, critical care nurses must embrace evidence-based practice as the norm. Nurses cannot knowingly continue a clinical practice despite research showing that the practice is not helpful and may even be harmful to patients. This article is based on 2 presentations on evidence-based practice from the American Association for Critical-Care Nurses' 2009 and 2010 National Teaching Institute and addresses 7 practice issues that were selected for 2 reasons.

Strategies for success: orienting to the role of a clinical nurse specialist in critical care.

Successful integration of a new clinical nurse specialist within an organization optimizes the safe, cost-effective implementation of evidence-based practice and research. This article provides strategies and information to support the clinical nurse specialist during his or her role transition, highlights opportunities and challenges to the role, and provides examples of orientation and performance tools that can assist in a successful orientation process.

A patient's bold voice: a journey through cardiac surgery.

Cardiac surgery is one of the most common operations performed on adults. The physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and technologies relating to this complex patient population are researched and discussed frequently in critical care journals. Most of this article is written by a patient who has had cardiac surgery, specifically an aortic valve replacement.