I’ve been a nurse for over 16 years, most of which was spent in trauma or surgical intensive care units. I’ve delivered countless chest compressions, units upon units of blood, and numerous vials of medications through veins, lungs, even bones. I have been scratched, bitten, spit upon and cursed. I have washed every imaginable body fluid from my shoes and my clothes. I have witnessed death before my eyes, in my grasp, and on my watch. Yet while all of these things may sound unpleasant, it is what nearly always happened at the beginning of every shift that is my most unsettling memory: THE PATIENT HISTORY REPORT.
Coronary Artery Disease. Peripheral Vascular Disease. Stroke. Cardiac Arrest. Obesity. Diabetes Type 2. Over and over, the same diagnoses. So many of them preventable with education, availability of resources, a shift in lifestyle and the desire to live well. While there are genetic exceptions, congenital anomalies and predispositions, THEY ARE FEW.