Monday, October 19, 2009

Article 1

I read an article this week about infection control challenges in deployed US military . The article talks about the challenges in dealing with infectious processes in the war injured soldiers. They are seeing a large number of Acinetobacter, Klebsiella and Pseudomonas. As I am interested in Pseudomonas in the trauma patient I found this article very interesting. It appears that soldiers are commonly coming down with these infections, and it is believed to be the lack of proper infection control protocol in stabilizing the patient in the war field and also during transport to a Stateside facility. It touches on how difficult it is to maintain infection control (IC) in a war zone, how with the staff routinely changing and the lack of IC training and experience are problematic. Also how hand hygiene and proper isolation of an infected patient are not always followed well in the chaotic environment of a war hospital. Very interesting article with great information and ideas on the need of better infection control in deployed military wounded.

Reference:

Hospenthal, D., & Crouch, H. (2009). Infection control challenges in deployed US military
treatment facilities. Journal of Trauma, 66(4 Suppl), S120-8.
http://search.ebscohost.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Hi Classmates

Hi, my name is Robin Wallace. I am on oncology RN, wife and mother of 2! I am excited about this class and gaining more knowledge on an infection that interests me.

I am in the ID-ANP program and am on route to graduating in March, which is exciting and scary at once. When I graduate I hope to contract with the Army/Air force and be a civilian ARNP in a European military clinic or hospital. My preference would be either Germany or Italy, and I am so excited to get this process going and see where it leads me. Who knows...maybe nowhere, but I won't know unless I try
This quarter I am going to focus on pseudomonas in burn and trauma patients.