Hello everyone!  My name is Kinsey Post and I have been a nurse for 12 years now.  Originally, I wanted to go into radiology.  I worked as a phlebotomist during college and realized nursing was my true passion.  I graduated with my LPN certification in 2007 and my ADN in 2008.  I recently received my 15 year pin at my place of employment.  I started working on the Surgical floor and moved to the Orthopedic unit.  This past July I made the transition to the Float Pool group.  There are only 6 float pool nurses at my facility.  We are trained in OB, ICU, PCU, ER, Acute care and Orthopedic.  This past year has been information overload with the training in each department and finishing up my BSN.  With that being said, since the float pool is trained for all patients we have been the first group of nurses asked to work the COVID-19 unit.  We had the option to refuse but I personally felt like the oath I took several years was to treat ALL patients.  So far there have not been any cases in the area but I see that changing in the next week or two.  The picture above is of me and my husband of 12 years from our trip to Cancun in January prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.

We have two boys ages 7 and 10.  As you can tell from the pictures the little one keeps us on our toes.  Both of our boys are involved in 4-H and various youth activities in our community.  As a family, we like camping, fishing, hunting, shed hunting, arrowhead hunting and pretty much anything outdoors.  So this quarantine is really driving us nuts!  But we all know its for the best.  We also have two indoor pets, our chocolate lab Bella and my son’s Holland Lop rabbit, Bandit.

Over the years research has played such a big role in my nursing career.  As an orthopedic nurse, I have noticed changes in not only the anticoagulants we use but also dressing changes.  When I first started as an ortho nurse we changed patient dressing daily and cleaned with betadine.  Now Evidence Based Practice has shown the less exposure to the incision has the better and its not necessary to clean the incision.  So our patients only get the dressing changed a total of 3 times in two weeks if drainage is minimal.  Also we have changed from Lovenox injections to Aspirin 325mg for DVT prophylaxis in minimal risk patients.  For the first time in my career I will be personally involved in data collection and analysis for evidence based practice with the COVID-19 patients which is both interesting and alarming.

This is the first time I’ve posted a blog or even been a part of a blog.  I’m intrigued to see how this semester will go.  Good luck everyone!