Welcome! I'm Kim McAllister, RN, BSN, CEN, and I'm an ER nurse in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I've been a nurse for 32 years, having graduated with my ADN in 1978. I spent the last three decades working in CCU, ICU, and ER with a side of psychiatry and pediatrics.
Earning my BSN in 2010 through the online University of Wisconsin - Green Bay BSN/LINC program was the best decision I ever made for my career. Here at MastersinNursing.com, you are probably looking for an MSN program. So am I! We'll search together!
I'm also love blogging, something I've done at Emergiblog (www.emergiblog.com) for the last six years. Here at MastersinNursing.com, I'll be blogging on nursing education, careers, trends and just about anything else that comes to mind.
Most importantly, I want to know what you are thinking! Questions, comments or topic ideas can be posted on our Twitter feed using the hash tag #MiNchat.
Get answers to your nursing related questions via our Twitter hashtag. Click here to learn more.
Attend a nursing conference and you come back energized, enthused, enriched.
And exhausted.
I’ve attended a lot of conferences. Nursing conferences, BlogWorld, BlogHer.
I learned the hard way that it is very easy to overdo it and wear out, when you really want to have energy so you can enjoy the experience.
Here are six tricks I use to make sure I have enough energy to make it through a conference, with some to spare!
It’s a no brainer.
Nurses are patient advocates.
It’s what we do.
We advocate for our patients
We help them advocate for themselves by helping them heal physically, mentally, emotionally.
We assess what they know about their condition and we provide information and resources so they can make informed, intelligent decisions about their care.
It’s such a basic tenet of the nursing profession, one would believe it unassailable.
Right? Continue reading
When looking at the commitment involved in earning an MSN, it’s nice to talk to nurses who have “been there, done that.”
Part two of my interview with family nurse practitioner Jennifer Scott looks at her practice, the impact of health care reform and her views on the DNP for advanced practice nursing.
You can find Jennifer’s blog at The Nurse Practitioner’s Place. Continue reading
It’s time for another edition of “Talking MSN”!
This time, we’re talking with fellow blogger and family nurse practitioner Jennifer Scott.
Jennifer blogs about her life as a family nurse practitioner at The Nurse Practitioner’s Place.
Today, she provides primary care in a rural health clinic. In Part One of our interview, I asked Jennifer to describe her path into nursing, and to share some advice with those who might be considering a family nurse practitioner career. Continue reading
I love this quote.
“Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.”
–Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss writer and poet
It’s the perfect description of nursing education.
It’s the perfect description of nursing.
Ah, the Three B’s of Nursing.
I’d been a nurse for 25 years before I heard that term, and I heard it from my nurse manager.
The “Three B’s of Nursing” are (a) bitching, (b) bickering and (c) backbiting.
Yikes.
Not a very attractive portrait of the profession, is it?
I just realized something…
These last few posts, I’ve sort of been counting down “my favorite things.”
Maybe I should sing like Julie Andrews!
Or not…
Well, these aren’t exactly “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens”, but they are my two main nursing causes!
Continue reading
I am an Apple fanatic.
We’re talking worshiping at the altar of the Macintosh.
I’m typing on a MacBookPro, following Twitter on my iPad and waiting for a call on my iPhone 4S. If I was rich, I’d buy any of the vintage Macs on eBay right now.
Yeah, it’s that bad.
So it isn’t surprising that I find uses both the iPhone and the iPad at work.
Continue reading
Organized chaos.
I use that term to define emergency nursing, but I can tell you that “organized chaos” is not conducive to a good study environment.
Going back to school, particularly if you are juggling work and a family requires a masterful level of organization. Online courses in particular require continuous self-motivation.
So, how do you manage to do everything you need to do and get your studying done without benefit of a 36-hour day?
Here are five tips for getting, and staying, organized during the semester:
Continue reading
It’s enough to make your head spin.
Staying current in nursing and health care is important, but these days it takes more than just perusing a journal or the occasional CE class.
Between increasingly sophisticated technology and the advent of health care reform, changes are coming so fast and frequently, daily vigilance is required to stay abreast of even basic information.
Fortunately, that same technology also makes it easy to keep up with the latest news. Continue reading
