After what can seem like endless, cold, bleak days of winter, the longer days of sunlight during the spring are a great time for rejuvenation. Spring can feel so fresh and vibrant as we emerge from winter. By the time we get to the end of winter which can begin to feel a bit too …
Do you miss the days of starched white uniforms and starched white nursing caps? Do you think nurses are more professional when they are dressed in all white? Do you think the public saw nurses differently when we wore nursing uniforms? I certainly did not like my student nurse uniform. I thought it was very …
We think that things should make sense, but there are times when they seem like they just don’t make sense. I am sure you have heard the phrase “work smarter, not harder.” You might even wonder how that is possible. One way this is possible is to step back and look at the big picture. …
Many nurses I know are perfectionist. Every detail matters and they generally get every detail correct. They ask themselves “Did I forget anything?” “Did I do that correctly?” “Did I make a mistake?” Perfectionism may be admired by others but it will eventually take its toll. There is enough stress in being a nursing student …
Being the most trustworthy professionals in America means that nurses must maintain an exceptionally high standard of ethics and integrity. Ethics is essentially about being an honest, respectable human being. This would seem to be a rather straight forward issue. However, it is much more complicated than it might seem at face value. Never the …
Nursing Topped The List Again As Most Trustworthy Professionals in America in 2016! Read More »
We need to be helping patients and certainly our family and friends to make good decisions about their medical care. I once had a family member who selected the hospital for his abdominal aortic aneurysm repair based on the hospital menu and the length of the hallway from the front door to the room that …
Trends seem to come and go. I remember a trend to in the early 1990s in Minnesota to cross-train non-nursing personnel to do nursing functions. These non-nursing personnel doing nursing work included janitors, housekeepers, transport workers, and security guards. So don’t think that it can’t happen in your hospital. These restructuring methods reduced nursing staff …
Are You At Risk To Have A Medical Assistant Take Your Job? Read More »
Being a change agent is a major function for nurses. Nurses are on the floor seeing the effects medicine and the health care system is having on the patient. We know that some things are getting better for the patient and other things are not. We must be vocal about the changes that are working …
Some days nursing has felt to be to be synonymous with “herding cats”. Trying to create order within an environment of chaos and unpredictable behavior can be quite the challenge. Being a nurse who prefers to work with foreseeable and anticipated situations I was always a bit frustrated while working in a hospital setting. Nursing …
Some of you may have heard of bullet journaling and some of you may have not heard about it. I sure wish it was around as a concept when I was going through nursing school. I always felt frazzled struggling to keep up and hoping that I hadn’t drop the ball on one or more …