I will never understand the world of advertising. Why do companies like Coca Cola and Wal Mart advertise? We all know that they are there. We can’t live without them, nor would we want to. Are the commercials merely a further reminder of our addiction to them in society? And why don’t our favorite hole in the wall restaurants and boutiques invest in national commercial campaigns? They are fabulous and the world should know it! But then again perhaps that is why they are fabulous; because they are unknown and special to a handful of people instead of an entire country. And they are exceptionally special to you. Why do some companies advertise until it gets to the point where you can close your eyes and picture their commercial in your head down to the smallest detail, while other companies rarely make a peep in the promotional world and still flourish just the same?

Companies that you consider to be fantastic but remain undiscovered are not exactly suffering the majority of the time. Often their low profile is premeditated. A lot of companies enjoy success in the median, they don’t want to be a super star corporation. In the movie Spanglish, Adam Sandler’s character portrays the perfect example of this. A restaurant owner who is upset when a restaurant reviewer gives his establishment a 5 star rating, he curses to high heaven and mourns the fact that his small town success is now going to be a huge restaurant where the regular patrons from the neighborhood will no longer be able to get a reservation.

Many companies embrace the small town feel of their business. They want to spend time with their families and run their one shop; not an entire chain. On the other end of the spectrum, we see that the big businesses advertise constantly. Why is this? Perhaps it is because they are threatened by the little guys inching their way up the food chain.

I refuse to go to Starbucks. I think it is too “trendy” and I prefer to patronize my local neighborhood coffee house. It has more charm and needs my business more than the coffee bean ruler of the world does. But what if everyone began to think as I do? Where would Starbucks be? Exactly.

Large corporations want their store’s image imprinted in your mind so that you won’t be distracted by the up and comers. Target has to advertise as much as Wal-Mart. TGI Fridays has to promote themselves as much as Chili’s. And so on and so forth until we are so bombarded by the giant commercial campaigns, that we wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.

I for one prefer the smaller establishment that is comfortable in its own skin and is enjoying its low key success. Others enjoy the multi million dollar corporations in “Anytown”, USA. The choice is yours. Everyone always complains that they don’t have enough money these days, so make sure that yours is spent in the best way!

I have high hopes for the future MBA holders of the world. I am hoping that as they get their feet wet in the working world and pursue this great degree, that they will learn from the example of their bosses, and move forward with the knowledge that sometimes, no matter how much education you have, there isn’t an excuse for being unbearable in the workplace.

I am writing this in light of a boss I know that single handedly turned a safe and secure corporate America into a horrific experience with his public relations stunts and lack of honesty. It is important to keep things in perspective, and realize that there are good things in every person. This is definitely true, and I would be able to easily sit down and write a list of this particular boss’ good qualities, but unfortunately the bad has outweighed the good. It compels me to write this so that future managers of the world know that some tactics are just not good, no matter how good your intentions may be.

Double Standards

In this particular company, we mentor young people, and they are deducted points and are punished accordingly for using vulgarities on campus. In turn, our president spends his days swearing up and down our hallways, within ear shot of the students. This sets the model for hypocrisy and though he has since had this brought to his attention and he has cut down significantly, he has still set the example of hypocrisy. This is a very difficult thing to reverse.

In other instances, this has been taken a little bit farther, by demanding loyalty from employees while demeaning them at the same time. Know that, as a manager, your leadership is most effective when other people feel as if you have “been there” at their level. People are going to respect you much more if you come alongside them instead of trying to be in front of them pulling the leash.

Honesty

Bosses who are continually dishonest sometimes believe that it will not catch up with them because they are the head of a company. Chances are though, that your employees are on to you or soon will be, and there is always a higher up somewhere, somehow to complain to. People never like being lied to. It is probably the quickest way to violate any trust as well as being the most difficult to earn back.

Lying to scare, coerce, or convince employees to partake in whatever your wish is for them to do, is not going to get you anywhere in the long run. Your mother told you that honesty is the best policy. And really, they told the truth.

Know that integrity outruns deceit and that investment in people is going to outshine any investments in education. Recognize your audience and work accordingly. You have been put in a position of leadership for a distinct reason. You have been given a higher purpose. Use that in a positive way.

My parents warned me. They told me over and over again how living the life of a 18 year old was great and carefree, but that it was a good thing to try and not be TOO carefree. I didn’t listen. I got my first Visa card application in the mail and felt instantly like a million bucks. I will never forget my first splurge. Bras & panties in an array of colors from the local mall’s Victoria’s Secret. I don’t know why I remember that exactly, but for some reason it sticks out in my mind. I was completely freed from my parents in two distinct ways. The first was of course the freedom to pick out and purchase my own undergarments without any comments from mom intruding on my joy. “RED underwear?! My goodness, isn’t that a little SUGGESTIVE?!”

The second was the fact that I had financial freedom.

The freedom had me down in chains a little quicker than I thought possible. My first Visa bill statement was reasonable and more importantly, payable. So were the second and third. But then costs started to mount, interest came into play, and then I came home for the summer while the bills went to my college housing, and suddenly it was 3 months overdue. 4 months. Then it was Christmas and I just couldn’t possibly make a payment because hello, I obviously had to spend my money on gifts for others. The credit agency would understand. I was merely being charitable.

Now I am 24 and reeling from the consequences. I got married last October, and still my in laws had to cosign for our first apartment. Why? Because even though both my husband and I had full time stable jobs, my credit was trashed. We have looked into applying for home loans and the banks have all but told us it is impossible, at least for the next 7 years as we fix…you guessed it…MY credit. My husband, my soul mate, my partner in life is suffering because of MY mistakes.

I am not saying this to be overtly dramatic or scare you into being anally responsible and driving your friends and family mad with your immaculate fiscal responsibility. But I am stating the facts. I didn’t think that credit was that big of a deal, and now I am suffering the consequences. I am singing the same “ I didn’t think it could happen to me” song from the world of recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, only my tune is even a little more bittersweet. Recovering substance abusers can choose who they share that with. My little “issue” is displayed on a computer screen to banks, credit card companies, mortage companies, department stores, my employer, and pretty much anyone else who wants to find out. I have the scarlet letter of debt pinned to my life and there isn’t exactly an easy escape.

Get a credit card, sure. But only get one. Or maybe two if you have been complimented on the past on our great self control and ability to pay things on time. But be careful. Don’t end up like me. It isn’t worth it. Debt isn’t fun, and an indebted reputation is even worse.

I am looking into beginning a distance learning MBA. The reasons behind this are simple. I want to pursue higher education, obtain a masters‘ degree, and I made the “follow your heart” mistake during my undergrad years and majored Creative Writing, my first love. Now I am trapped with a degree that I can’t use and am longing for a job that I can’t find. But I digress. Point being, I am working up the courage to begin a distance learning MBA.

The reason I use the words “courage” and “looking into” is because I am beginning to realize that it is going to be a very difficult road. I have seen my friends who are pursuing their MBA in night school. One warned me recently that working full time and going to graduate school after the sun goes down is not a task for the faint of heart. It is hard work with very little reassurance. And I am going to attempt to take it one step further by completing mine through distance learning. I know about these distance learning classes. They are tough.

It is easy to be sold on them. The idea of taking an exam in your pajamas, or being able to be home during Oprah is certainly appealing, but a lot of people do not realize the work and self discipline that goes into earning an online degree. Americans love easy street. We simplify everything. Fast food, fast cars, fast life. But let me warn you, distance learning is simultaneously a great opportunity and a disaster waiting to happen.

If you identify with any of these statements, then chances are it isn’t for you.

I Am Distracted Easily

Learning from the comfort of home sounds great, but remember that is the main thing that may also work against you. Home is not a classroom, it is a place of relaxation and familiarity. And distractions. TV, music, DVDs, your computer, your bed, the phone, visitors and a pet or two can cause the most destructive learning environment ever created. It is hard to learn Statistics when you have one eye on the MTV. It makes things more challenging a million times over. If you are easily distracted, this may not be a good route for you.

I Am Barely Making Ends Meet

Online courses are expensive. And even if you are just taking distance learning courses from a regular college, remember that regular college is expensive too! It is great that you are trying to increase your income by achieving higher educational goals, but please take note that it is going to surely shrink your income before it expands it.

I Am Too Busy To Go To Back To School

If you are too busy to sit in a real classroom for a few hours a day, chances are, you are too busy to be disciplined enough to finish your learning on your own. Distance learning is perfect for people who work part time, stay at home moms, and people who don’t want to have a life outside of work. It is tough. I know because I am none of these things. I am a full time working social butterfly who whines and carries on about how I never have enough time to see the people I love. So I am a little hesitant about this whole process. However I realize, as I am telling you now, that there is a silver lining in every tough challenge and I am determined to being committed to make this work. So good luck to you and good luck to me. And hey, can someone pass the remote?

I never used to understand the comic strip Dilbert. And now I am married to him. My husband works in the world of Information Technology (IT for all of you technology slang gurus), and sometimes it seems as if he is employed by a different planet. While most people want private offices, he greatly enjoys the engineers’ bull pen set up with their computers and desks all near each other. While others get impatient waiting for their email to load, he can sit there for hours working on making the numbers and chips fall right into place. I don’t understand it. I never will.

Coffee houses are a necessity in order to be fully awake by 9am and browsing at the local electronics store is considered a lunch break. Pens leak in your shirt pocket, but you hold more of a concern for saving the pen than salvaging the shirt. Your “friends” are often people you have never actually met in “real” life. Who has time? You are sitting at your computer! Again.

You instant message the people 5 feet away from you, and you check your MySpace every day. But even more so, you are usually responsible for helping your semi-real friends with THEIR space on the web because you are internet savvy. You become people’s world wide web whore.

You think YOUR job is stressful? Try being responsible for a network of 30 plus computers and then when the connection crashes, you are the only one who can fix it. Suddenly the office break room being out of coffee doesn’t seem like your biggest problem.

Chances are you will work for a dot com, and that means that the chances are even more likely that your job security is about as stable as a city resting on a major fault line. It is a wobbly world of lay offs, promotions, and constant demands for better and more advanced education & experience.

My husband loves what he does, but part of me is so fascinated as to why. How can someone be in such a stressful environment and yet still completely thrive and strive to succeed? You IT folk absolutely fascinate me. I have to google the most basic of terminology when something goes awry with my computer, and people who work in IT are the ones that WRITE the content for google?

IT workers, I salute you. You are the soldiers of the information super highway. The phenoms of networking and tech support. There is a quality about you that separates you from the rest of the world and yet at the same time you are the ones that keep the world going as we know it.

I still don’t understand the Dilbert cartoons very often. The humor is way over my head. But I am grateful for the chances I’ve gotten to be married to a member of your secret computer controlled society. I love how the world is different. And how through IT you help us to have a chance to communicate and work together.

The options for education and the number of degrees available are as varied as the computer industry itself. There are degrees available at every major college and university today; there are many choices in online education as well. Students with some electronics or engineering background may find the continuing education options online to be a convenient option. Students who are beginning their post-secondary education pursuits have choices online as well, and a remarkable number options at traditional universities.

For purposes of illustration, we’ll explore a single school’s curriculum. One large public university offers bachelor’s degrees in computer science that focus on subdivided areas.

Computer science degrees are offered through the school’s department of engineering. One degree is in electrical and computer engineering. Each student must select one of four options as an area of specialty: those are electronics; communications networks and systems; computer systems; and general course of study. The electronics option explores integrated circuits, their manufacture and design and other macro and micro areas of electronics. The networking major is self explanatory. Computer systems is about the design of computers, operating, database and programming systems. General Studies allows the student who is uncertain about a career choice to obtain an overview with some study in each area of the engineering aspects.

There is a bachelor’s degree in computer science for students interested in all areas of the field. These include algorithms, artificial intelligence, computer graphics and database engineering. There is also a bachelor of arts degree with the same major requirements but different core courses that focus on such areas of study as the theory of computation; programming languages and algorithm construction.

This university also has a master’s and a PhD program in computer science. There are two options in the master’s program: one is designed for students who intend to complete their education with this degree and enter the industry. The other is for those who will be proceeding to the doctoral program. Options in the PhD program include a focus on communication, computation and statistics; there is also a specialization in nanotechnology.

Online choices tend to have titles that are a little more pragmatic. University of Phoenix Online has no degrees in computer science per se: they do, however, offer a number of related bachelor’s degrees. These include degrees in business specializing in e-business or information systems and a bachelor’s in information technology. They offer an MBA in technology management and a master’s in information systems.

Capella University has bachelor’s degrees in information technology; network technology; project management; and graphics and multimedia. Their master’s programs include network architecture, information security; information technology; and system design and programming. All of these are areas of computer science, designed to make the graduate employable in the chosen field of study.

Computer science programs at traditional universities tend to include a broader base of education and take longer to complete. The online computer science programs are designed to provide thorough knowledge of a specific area of expertise, can be taken by people holding down full time jobs and usually can be completed in a shorter period than a degree from a traditional school.

Educators and health care professionals alike recognize the importance of health care planning in the school environment. Our public schools are increasingly burdened with the task of attending to the health of its students. With both parents working in the majority of American households, more children with mild illness are being sent off to school. As school district budgets go through regular budget cuts, special programs are being dropped. This means that students with special needs who might have landed in a tutoring program or special education classroom are being integrated into the general school population.

These trends have resulted in a significant expansion of the school nurse’s duties. Today a school nurse may be charged with dispensing medicine and then monitoring reaction to the medication, with monitoring glucose levels for diabetic students, with dispensing medication and treatment for the onset of chronic conditions such as asthma or an allergy attack, and so on. Ninety plus percent of public school nurses report caring for students with seizures, with diabetes and with chronic and severe asthma.

It has become a generally accepted premise that for students with special needs or with chronic health problems, it is good policy for the school nurse and/or school staff to develop an individual health plan for each of them. The process should begin with an in-depth interview with the student and parents or caregivers. The school’s nursing office needs to assemble as comprehensive a health record as possible on the student who may experience ongoing problems in school. This interview may be conducted with the student as active participant and the result needs to be a careful review of the child’s medical history and what early symptoms may be for the onset of medical difficulty.

The next step in the individualized health care plan is inclusion of treatment recommendations for the most common occurrences. The most common chronic medical emergency in school is some sort of respiratory problem. School staff should know if there has been medication prescribed for such incidents and, if so, have some provided to them by the parent. This portion of the plan should also include a discussion of the early warning signs that might be given off by the student and that information should be distributed to the appropriate teachers and school staff.

Individualized school health plans should include contact numbers for the child’s regular physician along with a list of any medications that the child is currently using or has been prescribed in the past. Also included in the plan should be treatment suggestions based on accepted medical practice and on what has been successful for the child during past occurrences. For children with a history of emotional dysfunction, the treatment history is particularly important. Sometimes a soothing word in the right context will accomplish more than any pharmaceutical alternative.

The individualized plan should also provide specifics for follow up on an incident. This may include contact with the parents, the child’s physician if allowed, and the child himself. The most thorough school health plan will make it incumbent on the school staff to determine that the child has moved beyond the emergency and returned to normal in a reasonable period of time.

There are different levels of small business management and accounting software. There are relatively inexpensive packages designed for truly small businesses with home-based endeavors or businesses with twenty five or fewer employees. Two of the leading brands in this category are Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting and Quickbooks, which is an Intuit product.

This level of accounting and management software provides invoicing and purchase order systems as well as receipts, bank deposits and bill payments. These systems will provide financial statements, generate reports based on your design, and they also include the graphics capability to develop flowcharts and similar visual analytical tools. In the case of the Microsoft Office product, the accounting software will integrate your contact management tool into a chart of accounts and provide for data transfer among the various Office software products utilized for business management - Word, Excel and Outlook.

These products and others like them are relatively inexpensive. They are primarily finance tools, used for accounting and, if the business is small enough, for payroll management.

Moving into the realm of business management combined with business accounting, you will find a new range of software products with more features and a higher price tag. Many of these software packages are sold in modular fashion; you can customize your business management software to meet your needs. If you want to add an additional feature at a later time you can purchase it and “bolt it on,” so to speak. These systems are also “scaleable,” a term which refers to the modular design and the fact that they can be designed to handle businesses of many different sizes.

Business management and accounting software (as differentiated from simply accounting software, like Quickbooks) provide an assortment of additional functions. Features may include inventory control software, CRM software, point of sale and invoicing software, billing software, email software, contact manager, task scheduler, time and attendance, payroll, document management system and so on.

CRM (Customer Relations Management) software has become an important management tool for many larger businesses that operate out of multiple sites. This type of database provides a wealth of information on each customer and manages the contact with that customer who may also have multiple business sites. Information on sales, preferences, contacts, ancillary information on the customer’s capacity and growth potential, a program for near-term future contacts - CRM software is a database on your business contacts that can be as detailed as you wish.

The CRM approach is also “scaleable” and can provide valuable support to business operations for mid-sized businesses as well. With the right information in your customer database, you can customize your marketing efforts and make many of your sales pitches through electronic means, rather than direct mail or standard advertising.

This is one example of the integration of business and accounting functions into a single software package. Software as comprehensive as this requires training for your staff and cooperation in keeping it updated and functioning properly. Utilized properly, CRM and analytic accounting software can replace a lot of business meetings and strategy sessions that fill many an executive’s day.

When Microsoft introduced its suite of desktop products under the title “Microsoft Office”, it seemed that they had packaged a nice collection of word processing and spreadsheet programs. It offered a mail and contact package along with a slick slide presentation program for the office worker who works on the sales side. There was also Access, the database program that could do virtually anything you asked of it as long as you could figure out how to ask and how to enter your data appropriately.

What was missing was a program for the employee on the P&L side, the employee who could analyze what the salesman was bringing in and company operations was putting out. What was missing was an accounting system, and then in 2004, Microsoft introduced their Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting (SBA) program. Microsoft’s SBA was truly targeted at the small business operator. This new program would benefit the entrepreneur who had outgrown Excel’s limited book keeping functionality but had not yet reached the level requiring Microsoft’s Small Business Manager Accounting, which at the time was a more sophisticated and far more expensive program.

Office SBA effectively ties together the limited functions of the other Office programs into an integrated small business set of books. Invoices created in word and sent to a contact name in Microsoft Outlook are logged in an Excel spreadsheet using the engine contained in the Small Business Accounting software. The software also offers capabilities for tracking sales and customer accounts receivable, disbursements and vendor accounts payable, and banking and financial reporting.

You can create customized forms through Microsoft’s Small Business Accounting software, providing that desktop-created professional look. SBA even has a program for converting appointments logged in Outlook into billable hours, which is the principal product for may attorneys and other consulting professionals.

You can run a payroll accounting system through Microsoft SBA that utilizes Excel as the platform. But the three principal accounting functions that the software provides are

: Creating invoices and purchase orders, Recording purchases, receipts, bank deposits, and bill payments Generating financial statements and other reports.

Small Business Accounting also will create flowcharts that provide the visual aid for following business transaction records. The newer versions of the software have converted some of the Outlook functions into a Business Contact Manager function.

The 2006 version of Microsoft Small Business Accounting opens with a setup record that walks you through the process of setting up your business accounting structure. This is an invaluable function, saving hours of headaches for the entrepreneur who is new to and confused by the book keeping functions of small business. You can select a type of business during the setup process, and the wizard will set up a chart of accounts designed to manage that type of business. You can import your contact list, or portions of it into the chart of accounts and already you have established the core of your business monitoring operation.

With a little practice, you’ll learn to utilize the flow charts and other analytical tools to predict business behavior. Microsoft Small Business Accounting, now several iterations old, has become a solid competitor in the small business accounting software field.

School nursing is a specialty for RNs that carries a number of unique characteristics. As the primary healthcare professional on site, the school nurse plays multiple roles that include providing treatment, health counseling, and developing plans to handle students with special needs.

In most cases, a school nurse’s first encounter with a student involves the onset of illness or an injury suffered on campus. In either case, the school nurse provides the initial medical treatment. Once the student is stabilized, it is up to the school nurse to provide the student with a plan for dealing with the injury or illness. A thorough school nurse may ask the parents of the ill student to report back on the student’s progress or on the findings of the physician, if a visit to the doctor is deemed necessary.

A plan for an injured student may also involve further medical attention, or it may just require a plan for treatment of the wound: wash it twice daily, treat it with heat or with ice, use disinfectant and so forth. The school nurse can write down this treatment plan, hand it to the injured student and ask for a return visit in a few days.

That is the end-to-end approach that school nurses must take. Many students (or their parents) will not follow up a visit to the school infirmary with a doctor’s appointment. So many families have no health insurance today that it might be a sensible assumption for a school nurse to make in all cases, especially in schools with a less affluent population. In those instances, it is of great importance that the school nurse develop and suggest a treatment plan, as that may be the only medical treatment that the student receives.

School nurses are also going to be faced with a small percentage of the student population that has special needs. Students with allergies, asthma and other chronic conditions or who are on a medication program, students with physical handicaps even as basic as migraine headaches are going to be the school nurse’s responsibility during school hours. The nursing office must be aware of students with these sorts of medical issues and have plans to deal with them when they develop health problems. Students with chronic difficulties or disabilities are going to have emergencies at school and the school nurse needs to be prepared for them.

Once the emergency is dealt with, the school nurse develops a plan for further treatment and presents it to the student. This task must be performed in an age-appropriate manner and in many instances is going to involve the child’s parents. As a hedge against parental indifference, the school nurse may wish to present the treatment plan to the child as an agreement between them, and ask for a return visit. The plan has been put in the child’s hands in a non-threatening manner and will make the return visit seem like a caring request rather than an authoritarian edict.

Free small business accounting software is somewhat akin to the free lunch. In computer terminology, free software often means “open source” software. That term refers to software programs that were designed to run on operating systems like Unix and Linux, the Sun Computers proprietary platform Solaris. There are some free accounting software programs available that do run on versions of Windows or on DOS. Many of these programs, however, have a base version that is provided free of charge as a download - and for which you can buy the additional features that make the product a fully rounded out small business accounting system.

There is a website that provides an assortment of free accounting software packages that run on a number of different platforms. You can browse through their selections at http://snorkel.rtfm.com.au/~aspect/cash.html. Most are specialized formats; some are designed to run on a web browser.

One product listed as a free small business accounting program that runs on Windows is OneStep Accounting. It sounds about right, until the last sentence: “It includes: general ledger, invoicing, bill paying, and inventory tracking. The Standard Edition is freeware.” As we mentioned, for many of these products the base edition is a teaser designed to sell the full fledged model.

One free accounting program that makes no immediate mention of add-ons with expenses attached is Miser. They describe their program in the following blurb: “You don’t need to be an accountant to use this program! Contains the following modules: debtors, creditors, cash Book, stock, ledger & sales analysis, manufacturing.” It also runs on every Windows system up to 2000 but makes no mention of XP on the site running its description. Miser can be located at: http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Enterprises/7323/miser.html

Other “free” options out there include Grisbi, an open source accounting program that claims to run on both Linux and Windows. Lazy Ledger is a program which will run on any machine with any operating system that has a Java Virtual Machine installed: the catch is that “This accounting program is designed for people who have experience in bookkeeping.” Not a lot of tutorials there.

Aqura Lite is a free accounting program with minimal features in the “Lite” version and a price tag attached to the complete version. The same structure is true of Ace Money Lite; a program for personal financial organization “that can also be used for business accounting.” Easy Cash Manager is a Dutch freeware product that is available from their website in a number of languages. On first glance, it appears to be a spreadsheet with some sort of graphing program added for chartflow displays. You can look this product over at http://www.moor-software.com/

Free sounds extremely inviting. What will be missing with all of these options is extensive instruction and technical support once the product is installed. Once you’ve downloaded it, you’re on your own. On the other hand, a decent small business accounting software package will probably cost out at a minimum of $300. If you buy the right product you can scale up or add features - also a minimal possibility with freeware.

The Health Care School of Hawaii is a training facility dedicated to teaching its students the art and science of being a nursing assistant. It calls itself a ‘Caregiver Training School’ and is approved by the state Department of Education. Tuition for the program is $500, but the school’s web page makes note of the fact that financial assistance is available, and that job placement services are available through Oahu Joblink.

For high school graduates who are not in a position to head off to college immediately and would like to pursue a career in nursing or a related field, the Health Care School of Hawaii is an ideal point of departure. Students learn basic nursing skills and all the little tasks that can fall to the care giver, principally through the process of working with geriatric patients.

The curriculum includes the basics of caring for people with mobility problems and, perhaps, communications difficulties. Medical focus includes infections control, nutrition, rehabilitation methods and learning to read vital signs. The course work includes eighteen hours of work in a nursing home to go with the sixty two hours of classroom study. Hawaii’s Health Care School is designed to provide some basic skill sets but beyond that, to incubate the sense of caring and compassion that is critical for someone working with invalids and perhaps hospital patients.

The nursing assistance training program leads to certification as a nurse’s assistant in the State of Hawaii. Once the training and certification is completed the student is prepared to work in the field, hopefully there in Hawaii through the placement opportunities provided by the Health Care School. Equally important is the basis for further education in the nursing field that this certification provides.

A graduate of Hawaii’s Health Care School can take the course hours and credits attained there, and pursue further education that may lead to other job opportunities in the field. Once the nurse’s assistant is working, the chance to see what other jobs area available that might be of interest in the medical services field. From there, an online search may well result in another program of education that can be pursued via the internet even if it is not available nearby in Hawaii.

Nursing assistants can find employment in many more locations than senior care facilities. There are opportunities in outpatient clinics, in schools, in any number of care giving situations where some rudimentary medical training is required. It is a specialty that can be developed without a full college education and from which employment should result fairly quickly.

The program is clearly designed to assist young people without a lot of assets and academic ambition. It is an opportunity for early success in an educational environment, which will result in gainful employment. It is no doubt the hope of the Hawaii Department of Education and the Hawaii Health Care School that early success such as this will encourage the graduates of the Health Care School to continue their education and career path further into the nursing profession.

The “best” small business accounting software is going to be the package that is easiest for the small businessman to understand and use. That is a subjective decision and not one that a third party can determine for any individual. The “best” small business accounting software is going to be the product with the most features to one businessman, and the one with the simplest user interface will be best for the next guy.

The top two products in 2005, according to the magazine PC World, were Quickbooks and Simply Accounting. Simply Accounting is deemed easier to use, while Quickbooks has a load of tutorials that come with its software. They also have three versions of the product, ranging from basic to deluxe. Prices for the Simply Accounting range from $50 to $500; Quickbooks is priced from $200 to $500.

These two accounting software programs are not the only ones on the market that have a basic model with a couple of fancier iterations at higher prices. The shopping decision is going to be based, to some degree, on what features you need, which features you would like to have and which are overkill.

Several online reviews of small business accounting products show the same names popping up over and over. Quickbooks and Simply Accounting are two of them. MYOB Business Essentials is a title that appears often and is available in both Mac and PC version: it is described as a “double entry” system. Peachtree is also a product line that usually appears near the top of the charts. Microsoft has a couple of products that are included in the small business accounting software category: their Small Business Manager line and at the low end, under $100, Microsoft Money.

About.com is a website that is designed to provide consumer recommendations on products. There are many categories aimed at business software: for each they provide a top ten list. There are also articles there on how to go about choosing a small business accounting software program. The site makes it clear that its reviews have no relation to its sponsored links. Their top ten choices for small business accounting software are

: Peachtree Complete MYOB Business Essentials Pro Quickbooks Pro NetSuite Small Business Accounting Cougar Mountain Microsoft Small Business Manager Simply Accounting Pro CYMA IV Accounting DacEasy Microsoft Money 2005

This is one set of recommendations. ZDnet, another big tech website that rates all sort of products, produced a list of small business accounting software that basically contained the same major names and ignored the lesser known lines such as Cougar Mountain and DacEasy. The two major players in accounting software for small business are Microsoft and Intuit, which produces Quickbook and other Quicken products.

There are reasons to shop the major product lines. One of them is that most will link seamlessly to Word and Excel, two programs that every small business uses for multiple purposes. But understand that each has an assortment of business accounting packages. You need to study the features of each one in depth, and determine which one has the features that are right for your business.

As the role of the school nurse has expanded to include significant health care responsibilities, so has the need for plans to handle specific types of situations and, on occasion, specific students. Today’s school nurse handles the primary health care needs of a number of students, those whose parents cannot afford or do not have health insurance. Public school populations have been expanded to include special needs students who might formerly have been enrolled in a tutorial responsive to their disabilities.

Students with special needs include those with physical or mental disabilities and those with chronic illnesses (such as asthma) that require periodic treatment. It is likely that students in these categories will be periodic visitors to the school nurse’s office. If possible, school nurses should develop personal histories on these students by talking with the parents in order to thoroughly understand the nature of the disability or illness.

By acquiring a the health records the nurse can develop an individual health plan for each student. This may include communicating with school staff about the issues these students face and early warning signs for incident onset. Emergencies can be avoided through this type of planning. Since the most common emergencies school nurses face are respiratory in nature, early intervention can be critical and simple preventative steps should be explained to the teaching staff. This kind of planning avoids a full blown emergency.

Development of a plan after an emergency is also an important health care role for school nurses and personnel. A student who has suffered an injury or come down with an illness should leave the nurse’s care with instructions for ensuing treatment. Communication among the nurse, school staff and the parents can insure execution of this plan. It no longer makes sense to assume that an injured or ill student will be seeing a doctor after leaving the school grounds. It is vital that post emergency health care plans come from the school nurse.

Any school-based health care plan, whether individual or in the form of general guidelines must incorporate recognition that nearly all school health care is pediatric health care. When developing a plan for a special needs child, the school nurse should focus on the child’s abilities instead of disabilities. Working up a history with a child and the parents should give the child a sense of safety while at school rather than further focus on his or her functional shortcomings. Children that are required to report to the nurse for monitoring or medication should feel welcome in order for a health care plan to function properly.

Post trauma school health care plans should incorporate monitoring of the injury whether or not a physician has become involved. A student’s performance in school may be affected and, depending on the nature of the injury, an allowance for reduced performance should be part of the treatment plan. Many school nursing facilities have relatively sophisticated equipment to deal with emergencies. It is important that the health care plans developed for post-injury care recognize the academic and social consequences of the medical issue and prepare the child as well as school staff for both.

With the advent of managed care and the assortment of health care reform bills that have been voted out of Congress recently, healthcare is closing in on becoming an area of legal specialization. Some law schools now teach health law in a program format, with a series of courses available that cover various aspects of the subject. Upon completion of the requisite course hours and field work, the law student is awarded with a Certificate in Health Law to accompany his Juris Doctor on the office wall.

Medical malpractice and insurance disputes have been stalwarts in the legal field for years. A newer area of legal conflict are bioethical issues which, at this point, are equally at home in the legislature as in court. Included in this area are matters such as genetic data privacy, gene- based alterations of agricultural and pharmaceutical products, and a number of medical therapies coming on line. These are public policy issues that are working their way into the courtroom. Related to these issues is the body of law that has grown around the Food and Drug Administration and, among other issues, their administration of drug development.

Individual rights are a legal healthcare issue when in comes to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Access to health care for the poor is a developing civil rights issue, with national advocacy groups in place and classes in law schools addressing the matter as a sole topic. The right to privacy for personal medical records has been a major political and legal concern. The passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) created an entire legal structure for the protection and personal control of an individual’s medical records. But as with every protective measure there are exceptions, and those have led to a small but lively industry of HIPAA inspired lawsuits.

Healthcare delivery and child welfare are occasionally conflicting issues that speak to parental rights and have been fought out in highly publicized trials. Withholding important medical educational information from children has also come before the courts. Public health is a major area of legal specialty, involving state and federal legislation, funding, regulation and healthcare as it relates to taxes.

Managed care issues that are addressed in law school include health care financing, antitrust due to the consolidation of HMOs and equal access. Medicare and Medicaid rights are closely related to managed care, as is the issue of assumed risk for the medical personnel who work for the large and growing healthcare organizations. Fraud and system abuse have also become worthy of legal study since false insurance claims begin to emerge as a substantial problem, involving both patients and the medical community.

At least one law school has an entire course dedicated to e-medicine. Among other things it covers the transmission of medical imaging and pharmaceutical practices: generally the issues are security, privacy and technology. Records transmission and claims transactions are points of discussion within the context of the internet as an active participant in the practice of medicine.