Posted in Nurse Safety, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News
Theresa Brown, an oncology nurse, describes a situation in which an entire medical team on its morning rounds stands in a patient’s room, waiting for a test result. The patient, a friendly middle-aged guy, jokingly asked his doctor whom he should yell at. The doctor turned and pointed at the patients’ nurse and replied, “If you want to scream at anyone, scream at her.” In this article on the New York Times’ Well blog, Brown notes that this bullying didn’t…
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Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing Specialties
Nurses everywhere are celebrating National Nurses Week May 6th through 12th. One such nurse, Renee DeRider, says that nursing has been one of the most rewarding experiences she’s ever had. DeRider has over a decade of experience nursing. She graduated in 2001 and immediately started working in pediatrics, with a concentration in hematology, oncology, and surgery. Now she works in a hemophilia center where she coordinates patient care for both children and adults with bleeding disorders. This article on the…
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Posted in Nurse Safety, Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties
Nurses working in oncology care suffer from a high degree of burnout and compassion fatigue. The typical oncology nurse will develop a close relationship with patients and patients’ family members over the course of treatment, which can last months or even years. In a study conducted by Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 153 participants (mostly nurses), responded to a wide variety of questions on their feelings of burnout and compassion fatigue. Forty-four percent of inpatient staff nurses felt they suffered some…
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Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing School, Nursing Specialties
In honor of National Nurses’s week, Sherry R. Siegel, R.N., M.S.N., C.H.P.N, is featured in an article on GoErie.com, relaying her story of being a nurse over the past twenty years. Her story begins more than 20 years ago when she was a single mother with two children and lots of bills to pay. She was a waitress at the time and actually enjoyed that job, but the pay was not enough to give her family financial security (or health…
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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties
An RN named Kelly Jantz loves being a nurse, and loves making people laugh. Once a week, she shows up at her hospital in a vintage nursing uniform, wheeling her cart full of supplies. No hypodermic needles here — it’s all the likes of stuffed animals, comic DVDs, and clown noses. These supplies are used for laugh therapy with staff members, patients, and their families. She’s dubbed her program Positive Hopeful Individuals Laughing, or PHIL. In this article on the…
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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News
One of Tim Flynn’s first duties as the first full-time nurse for the Texas State Capitol was to give then-Governor Ann Richards a flu shot. He was nervous enough that he forgot to bring a band-aid, which led Gov. Richards to warn him that he better not let any blood sully her $300 silk blouse! He did his job carefully and well and her blouse was safe. His job was safe too evidently, because he’s been the Capitol nurse for…
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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News
Debt collection agencies have been embedding debt collectors as employees who run interference in emergency rooms and visit patients’ bedsides to demand payment, among other aggressive tactics. The Minnesota attorney general, Lori Swanson, revealed that Accretive Health, one of the nation’s largest collectors of medical debts, has been engaging in these tactics. The New York Times notes that this raises concerns that “such practices have become common at hospitals across the country.” Hospitals are increasingly desperate to recoup payments as…
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Posted in Nurse Safety, Nursing, Nursing News
Most nurses can expect to face at least one instance where legal representation becomes necessary in the course of their career. Although most healthcare institutions carry malpractice insurance for nurses and will provide their own in-house counsel or insurance counsel, there may be times when nurses feel they need their own private lawyer to protect their interests. Generally, the amount of malpractice insurance an institution carries will suffice for protecting a nurse from personal financial loss, but in high liability…
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Posted in Affordable Care Act, Nursing, Nursing News
Dr. Otis Brawley is concerned how health care is currently consumed. He’s written a book called “How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America” that examines and explains these concerns. Tara Parker Pope of the NYT’s Well blog spoke to him about his book and how broken he considers the United States health care system to be. He states that “failure is in the system” — that no horror stories (and he has some doozies,…
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Posted in Nursing, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties
A Minneapolis-based hospital group will require that their employes wear matching uniforms distinguished by colors starting in May, one color per job category. Think Star Trek, but in a more Earth-bound (and medical) setting. Nurses get navy scrubs. Licensed practical nurses will wear eggplant. Respiratory therapists get olive green. The idea is to make it easier for patients and family members to identify their care team by the color of their uniform. However, unionized nurses are not happy that the…
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