When it comes to kicking off the new year with some new habits, many people take the “gradual” approach. Diets start with one or two little changes at a time, exercise starts with a single workout and builds up to three or four. But medical science hit the ground running in 2019 and roared into the new year with the first of many exciting medical discoveries… a potential cure for partial facial paralysis.

Whether caused by palsy, a stroke, or one of many other possible maladies, facial paralysis is very difficult to live with. Not only is it debilitating, but the lack of muscle control takes a toll on self-confidence and morale as well.

Now, thanks to a breakthrough announced on January 1, 2019, there may soon be a cure.

A piece of surgically implanted equipment called “the bionic face” is showing incredible promise, by registering the electrical and muscular impulses on the healthy side of the face and transferring those commands to the paralyzed side of the face.

“Though the ultimate goal of reanimation is to restore dynamic motion of the entire facial musculature, restoration of three symmetric facial movements alone — brow elevation, blink, and smile — would dramatically improve outcomes,” writes lead researcher Dr. Nate Jowett in a press release.

It’s not the first time this technique has been explored… but it’s the first time that scientists have made it work without unwanted side effects. In earlier tests, transferring commands from one side of the face to the other may have successfully created movement, it also opened the door for a lot of unwanted movement—involuntary twitching and other similar issues.

To accomplish this, scientists added an alternating current to the bionic face—waves of high-frequency electricity that essentially cancel out any unwanted nerve signals.

As of right now, the successful experiments have only been done on lab rats, but researchers are optimistic. The partially paralyzed rats were able to blink both eyes simultaneously, and move whiskers on both sides of their faces when they could previously only move one.

It may be a while before you start seeing this technology in your hospitals (and in your patients), but the news is a giant leap towards a better life for those with partial paralysis.

This means the ability to blink both eyes again. The ability to raise both eyebrows at the same time to restore facial expressions. And the biggest win of all, the ability to smile a big natural smile whenever your patients wants.

This breakthrough could eventually mean a whole new life for those in your care, and it’s only the first month of the year. If the first weeks of 2019 are any indication, there are some wonderful things to look forward to in the healthcare industry this year.

And how incredible is it for nurses to have front row seats. If you’re interested in beginning a career as a nurse or medical assistant, contact Unitek College today!

Keep Your Resolution To Become A Nurse in 2019

Resolutions are fantastic—self-improvement is always a good idea, and New Year’s provides the perfect opportunity to take on the challenge. Unfortunately, only 9.2 percent of people on average actually follow through with their plans. Those aren’t great odds!

With the promise of a competitive salary, a wide-open job market, and rapidly growing career prospects, the resolution to become a nurse makes a lot of sense. The combination of a dependable and dynamic career (plus the added bonus of genuinely helping people every day) makes nursing a very attractive “New Year / New You” option.

As with any resolution, there’s a right way and a wrong way to pursue it. Charge in without planning or, well, resolve, and you could easily join the 91.8% of failed resolutions.

But take a few simple steps to do it the right way, and the resolution to become a nurse could easily be the best you ever make.

Make Specific Goals – “Become a nurse” is too vague. “Enroll in nursing school” is better, but still skips a few steps. Your resolution is your ultimate goal, but to reach it, you’ll need to make a list of specific goals and milestones.

Your list can start as simply as “call admissions office to get a flyer” or “schedule a campus visit”. Start small, start specific, and move forward only as fast as you’re able.

“My goals may seem impossibly far-fetched when really they’re not,” writes author Richelle E Goodrich in her book Making Wishes. “Break them down into steps and see how I accomplish great things. I can easily reach from A to B. I can manage from B to C. I can then make it from C to D. And so eventually, I will find my way from A to Z.”

Prepare Your Life For Change – Nursing school means schedule changes for family and for your existing job. Look at your life and identify what needs to change to make the conditions as good as possible to pursue your goal. Get an idea of class schedule through the school’s admissions office, then figure out how to make that schedule work for your life.

Make It Public – You have a greater chance of success if others (friends and family) know your goals. This applies to all resolutions, from losing weight to spending more time with the kids to landing that nursing degree. The more people know your plan, the more help you have staying on track.

Believe – The most important person to convince of the validity of your dream is you. If you don’t believe in what you claim to want, you have little to no chance of success. If you want to be a nurse, you have to see yourself as a nurse. Do your research, do some volunteering, schedule a campus visit—know your potential future and see yourself in it.

Then (and this is the most important part) refuse to let anything stand between you and those scrubs.

Ready to make the leap? Or looking to gather some information for those first few specific goals? You already have help. Give us a call at Unitek College and we’ll make sure you have everything you need to know in order to make that big decision.

Good luck in 2019, future nurses! We’re rooting for you.

Pittsburgh Nurse Shows Love in the Face of Hate

Just over a week ago on Saturday, October 27, the world was stunned when a shooter opened fire on the worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Before law enforcement could arrive and subdue the shooter, 46-year-old Robert Bowers, he’d already taken eleven lives and wounded many others, including two of the responding SWAT officers. The entire violent exchange lasted nearly twenty minutes before Bowers was wounded and surrendered.

As expected after all tragedies, the medical community of Pittsburgh quickly stepped up to help, rushing aid to the victims and working as hard as possible to ensure that the number of dead did not rise by a single person more.

But for nurse Ari Mahler, who also happens to be Jewish himself, the work took a much more difficult and much more personal turn than he’d expected… when he discovered that his patient was none other than Robert Bowers—the alleged murderer, the man who just moments before had allegedly acted upon his belief that “all Jews must die.”

Nurse Mahler could have requested to be given another assignment and no one would have blamed him, but instead, he stayed true to his commitment to nursing, and began treating Bowers as best he could.

“Bowers thanked me for saving him, for showing him kindness, and for treating him the same way I treat every other patient,” Ari wrote in a lengthy Facebook post shortly after the ordeal. “I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish. Why thank a Jewish nurse when 15 minutes beforehand, you’d shoot me in the head with no remorse? … This was the same Robert Bowers that just (allegedly) committed mass homicide. The Robert Bowers who instilled panic in my heart worrying (that) my parents were two of his 11 victims less than an hour before his arrival.”

The son of a rabbi, Nurse Mahler says that he’d been no stranger to anti-Semitism as he grew up, even in the relatively peaceful community of Squirrel Hill.

“I found drawings on my desks of my family being marched into gas chambers, swastikas drawn on my locker, and notes shoved inside of it saying, ‘Die Jew. Love, Hitler.’ It was a different time back then, where bullying was not monitored like it is now,” he wrote.

This experience could have made him bitter. It could have easily driven him to hate those who hated him and his family. But instead, he began to see the perpetrators as people acting out of ignorance, a perspective that played a huge part in his treatment of Bowers.

Mahler said he did his best to treat Bowers with compassion and empathy, and that he felt that the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong.

“Love. That’s why I did it,” Nurse Mahler concludes in his post. “Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we’re all here. The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and love is the ultimate force that connects all living beings. I could care less what Robert Bowers thinks, but you, the person reading this, love is the only message I wish instill in you. If my actions mean anything, love means everything.

Respectfully,  Ari Mahler, RN.”

The world needs more nurses, and for more information on becoming a nurse or medical assistant, you can contact Unitek College today to begin your journey.