As part of national Nurse Week, Stanford Hospital has established a tradition: the Nurse Week Partnership, which invites medical center faculty and staff to shadow a nurse during a normal working shift. The annual event lets visitors see a full range of services in the hospital, such as these snapshots by Medical Center Report writers:

From starched uniforms to colorful scrubs

Remedios Del-Rosario decided to become a nurse at age 13 while visiting an aunt in the hospital. She admired the nurse's starched uniform, white hat and upright bearing. "Now look what I wear," she said, pointing to her colorful scrubs. Del-Rosario has been an orthopedics nurse for 30 years.

While she loves bedside care, the majority of her day is spent keeping track of papers -- papers listing patient history; detailing care she's given throughout the day; or containing doctor's orders.

"We do more paperwork than anything else," she said, though she gets some help from computers when it comes to doling out medicine. Del-Rosario entered a drug name into a computer station, which updated the patient's records and automatically popped open the correct drawer and medicine bin to ensure she grabbed the right pill.

Although Del-Rosario appreciates the computerized help, she can think of other electronics that would make her life easier. "I wish I could wear something that records everything I do during the day," she said. "Then I could spend more time with the patients." --Amy Adams

‘They're doing well'

Being in the hospital for more than a month is no picnic, but one Stanford Hospital patient swears there are benefits -- such as the care provided by his nurses in the Cardiac Care Unit, in particular, Heidi Balagot.

Responsible for patients recovering from heart-related aliments, Balagot performs a variety of tasks to ensure safety and comfort. A quiet Tuesday morning found her doing everything from taking blood sugar levels to delivering medication to serving breakfast to delivering a much-needed toothbrush. Balagot rarely stopped moving -- or smiling.

It wasn't her smile, though, but a quick trip to a computer monitor that gave away how much she cares about her job and her patients. Balagot used the electronic charting system -- a fixture in all the intensive care units -- to check on the progress of two recent patients who had received heart transplants. "They're doing well," she said, satisfied, as she pulled up the rest of their information. --Michelle L. Brandt

Nurse or track star?

You need running shoes to keep pace with Mike Bautista, a resource nurse on unit F3, a medical/surgical unit for epilepsy and stroke patients, and those recovering from gynecological surgery. Bautista sprints through the ward, admitting new post-surgery and neurology patients, assigning staff, assisting other nurses and keeping things moving smoothly.

At one point, he stopped to check on one of his charges, a young woman with disabling seizures who had electrodes glued to her scalp to help pinpoint the source of her problem. Wearing a turquoise turban that secured the electrodes, she was constantly monitored by technicians, who tracked her brain waves on a video screen.

Bautista paused on his rounds to give the patient a dose of Tegretol, an epilepsy drug. She was alone and eager to share her story. Bautista, meanwhile, was out the door in a flash, tending to other tasks: nine patients were to arrive that afternoon and he had to prepare. "It's what you call getting slammed," he said of the sudden influx.

The pace is not unusual, he said, adding that every bed on the unit is filled. With the shortage of nurses, Bautista and his colleagues share the load and manage the best they can. "It's a lot of responsibility for the amount of manpower you have," he said. --Ruthann Richter

A place where change is constant

When it comes to nursing, the old adage, "the only constant is change," certainly applies. "I don't think anything here hasn't changed in the last 10 years: medication systems, charting, the way we do patient care," said Erma Williams, a soft-spoken nurse who has worked at Stanford Hospital for 32 years.

Williams works on F3. The changes she has seen include innovations that help patients recover more quickly and achieve better clinical outcomes. A patient in the unit who had surgery for abdominal cancer, for example, was wearing what looked like padded tubing around her lower legs. Williams explained that the device stimulates blood flow by applying moderate pressure up and down the legs, reducing the risk of blood clot formation.

As Williams entered another patient's room to change his IV medication, she pointed out the plastic pouch in her hand -- which holds the medication -- as another improvement. Nurses used to mix and measure these medications manually, but today they come premixed and premeasured, reducing the risk of incorrect dosage. --Sara Selis

First things first

Nurse Marina Huang's job is to monitor patients' vital signs in the telemetry unit -- but her social skills are at least as important as the high-tech equipment.

As a new patient was wheeled in, Huang introduced herself and a nearby member of the nursing staff. Her priority was to make the patient comfortable -- physically and emotionally. Huang knew only the barest details of the patient's medical history -- the woman had been admitted to the hospital the night before for bleeding in her esophagus.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. A sore throat? That's normal after surgery, she explained. The surgery had stopped the bleeding, she told the patient; her daughter had called; and a friend had left flowers. Did the patient need to relieve herself? Yes she did, so Huang set her up with the bedpan and when that didn't work, moved her on to a commode.

Satisfied that the patient was at ease, Huang hooked her up to the monitoring equipment and only then did she began gathering medical information in earnest. --Rosanne Spector