Nurses inspire a new product designed to conceal unpleasant face mask odor. A weekly podcast hosted by a certified nurse coach offers helpful nursing career advice. A nurse is said to have inspired a Peanuts TV special based on childhood cancer by writing a letter to Charles Schulz in 1985. Read on for more nursing news and insights.
Nurses inspire face mask odor product
The long-term wearing of masks by healthcare provider has posed its challenges well before the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Among the drawbacks are unpleasant face mask odor.
So when Mark Pizzini, an anesthesiologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, observed nurses in the recovery room helping patients cope with their nausea and anxiety by using aromatherapies, he realized that they might also be on to something that would help their peers reduce the odors associated with wearing masks frequently. He had also observed that during surgeries staff members would apply mint lidocaine, a local anesthetic, ointment into masks to conceal foul odors.
Pizzini would continue to consider how a device might be worn in a mask safely, and after five years of research and testing has launched ScentClip, an individualized aromatherapy clip that can be placed in most masks to improve face mask odor.
Podcast spotlight: The Nurse Keith Show
Launched in January 2015, The Nurse Keith Show is hosted by Keith Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC, a board-certified nurse coach. The podcast offers weekly nursing career advice, information, and inspiration for nurses and healthcare professionals who want to take their careers to the next level.
A New Jersey native, Carlson is currently based in Santa Fe, NM, and is also involved in speaking engagements, team-building seminars, retreats, workshops, webinars, and virtual learning.
In his most recent podcast episode, he interviews Joy Fernandez de Narayan, DNP, FNP-C of Mercy Care, a federally qualified health center and Atlanta’s only healthcare for the homeless program.
Want quality continuing education courses for nurses? Find nursing CE courses in your state.
Did a nurse influence a Peanuts TV special?
In December of 1985, Sylvia Cook, then a young nurse, is said to have written a letter to Peanuts creator Charles Schulz about creating a cartoon based on childhood cancer called Why, Charlie Brown, Why?
According to the entertainment website CBR, Cook was motivated to reach out to the famous cartoonist after watching her young patients endure arduous cancer treatment and not fully understanding what was happening to them or why. She suggested that a cartoon about a child with cancer would really help the children to cope, because the Peanuts were so appealing to young children.
Schulz reportedly told Cook that he wanted to do the project, and he consulted her on the story line. The program evolved into a network TV special.
