Leeches at work

I usually don't blog about work, because as a nurse, I have to be very careful about what I say. HIPPA (basically an acronym for confidentiality) is very strict on these things, and since I like having my nursing license, obviously I have to keep the details to a minimum. However, I decided to blog about work because I was able to do something different at work the other day.

We had a patient that needed leech therapy. We received sterilized leeches from Pharmacy, and then every half hour or so we had to put a leech on the patient. The point of leech therapy is to increase blood flow to the area you are working on. Let me just say that I am not a huge fan of leeches. They don't freak me out, but I don't especially like to play with them either.

I spent a lot of time figuring out how leeches attach and how to work with them. They were really frustrating! You would think with all the blood around the leech would attach no problem, but they are fussy little things. So anyway, I did not expect to have to handle leeches as a nurse, they definitely did not teach me that in nursing school!