Nursing News

No smart or decent nurse would think of doing such a thing.. yet these two RNs were arrested for it

Posted in Nursing News

Illustration: Stop signIf you were forced to choose one thing you should never, ever do, as a nurse, using your smartphone to snap pictures of patients’ private parts would probably be right up there in the list. If you would even come up with such a thought, that is. And yet it keeps happening! At least twice this last couple of months, a Registered Nurse made the news over exactly this.

Last March, the media reported on the case of a 27-year-old former nurse from Fulton, N.Y., who surrendered her nursing licence and declined to contest a charge of moral unfitness in the practice. She’d been arrested last year after using her iPhone to take a picture of an unconscious male patient’s penis.

The nurse, Kristen A. Johnson, also videotaped how another nurse cleaned an unconscious female patient’s gastrointestinal blood clot. The other nurse “told police that Johnson pointed her phone at her while she was cleaning the blood,” the Syracuse Post-Standard reported. The District Attorney’s Office started an investigation after the nurse’s co-workers at Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., complained that she’d texted them images of both patients. The investigators later found the video and the photo back on Johnson’s laptop.

Photo: Kristen Johnson

Kristen Johnson, arrested for having photographed intimate parts of unconscious patients (Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office)

At the time, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick released a statement saying that “despite what certain people seem to think, it is a crime in the state of New York to view, broadcast or record images of another person’s intimate body parts, surreptitiously”.

Johnson lost her job and was initially charged with two counts of felony second-degree unlawful surveillance and one count of misdemeanor second-degree disseminating of unlawful surveillance images. In a plea deal later last year, she pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count that covers all of the charges, a follow-up story by the Syracuse Post-Standard reported, and in exchange the felony charges were reduced. She was required to give up her nursing license, and placed on probation for three years.

If none of that was creepy enough, police elsewhere in New York state, on Long Island, arrested a registered nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip last month for photographing a teenage female patient’s “intimate parts”, News 12 Long Island reported. The nurse, 35-year-old Nick Petrella, stands accused of taking several photos of the patient while she was unconscious in the emergency room, receiving care for alcohol intoxication, according to ABC 7 New York.

Petrella had worked at the hospital for the last eight years, and his attorney said he was “highly honored and respected” as a nurse and had no past criminal record. He was arraigned on felony unlawful surveillance charges on May 27, but pleaded not guilty, and the judge “set cash bail at $7,500 and bond at $15,000.”

A common thread in both cases is that the police acted after a fellow nurse took action. In Petrella’s case, “another staff member of the hospital that observed Mr. Petrella, notified the charge nurse that was on duty, and the hospital ultimately advised us of it,” News 12 Long Island quoted Detective Sgt. John Diffley. If you see a colleague doing harm, do not hesitate to let someone know.

Nursing as a second career: older nurses prove it’s never too late

Posted in Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing School

Alberta Hunter in her nurse uniform at Goldwater Memorial Hospital before her retirement in 1977

Alberta Hunter in her nurse uniform at Goldwater Memorial Hospital before her retirement in 1977

In 1955, blues and jazz legend Alberta Hunter decided to begin a second career as a nurse after reaching the pinnacle of a music and theater career spanning more than 4 decades.  Yet, she was turned down when she first applied to the School of Practical Nursing at the Young Women’s Christian Association branch in Harlem.   The director of the school told her that she was simply too old to become a nurse.  Undaunted, she applied again, this time with a fake birth certificate and high school diploma that understated her actual age by 12 years.   She then graduated from the YWCA LPN program in August 1956 and went on to work as a nurse at Goldwater Memorial Hospital in New York until she was forced by the hospital to retire in 1977 at age 82 (although the hospital staff actually thought she was 70).  By all accounts, she was an excellent nurse who was adored by her patients and coworkers and whom, during her 20 years at Goldwater Memorial Hospital, never missed a single day of work or was ever late to a shift.

These days, older nurses and nursing students have it much easier than Ms. Hunter.  While ageism and age discrimination is still as much of a problem in the nursing field as it is in other fields, it has clearly declined and older nurses and nursing students can expect a much more welcoming environment and workplace than they could have 60 years ago.

Operating room nurse Annell

Operating room nurse Annell

Annell Farris, the most recent winner of the Nursing Jobs Nurse Photo Contest, was 59 years old in 2008 when she graduated from the School of Nursing at John Hopkins University and began working as an operating room nurse.

In a recent Youtube video, Nurse Awesome outlined some of the advantages of being an older nursing student.

Nursing Job Outlook in 2014

Posted in Nursing Jobs, Nursing News

Smiling Nurse With Thumbs Up PosingAs 2013 began, some experts declared that not only was the nursing shortage over but that it was a “myth” (See our February 2013 article: “Is the nursing shortage a myth?“) and a number of news outlets began reporting on just how difficult it was becoming for new nursing school graduates to find a job. However, as we enter 2014, it is clear that there is still a shortage of experienced nurses in some regions, that the demand for nurses will continue to rise and that new nurse graduates still have a much better chance of finding a job than new graduates in other fields.

An August 2013 survey by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that the average job offer rate at the time of graduation was 59% for BSN graduates and 67% for MSN graduates. The survey also found that within 4 to 6 months of graduation, 89% of BSN graduates and 90% of MSN graduates had job offers. In comparison, a similar survey, by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, of graduates in other fields found that only 29.3% had a job offer at the time of graduation. This indicates new nurse graduates still have a much better chance of finding employment than those in other fields. The survey also indicated that there were significant regional variations in new nursing school graduate employment rates within 4 to 6 months of graduation:

The job offer rate for BSN graduates did vary by region, from 82% in the North Atlantic to and the West to 90% in the Midwest to 93% in the South. For entry-level MSN program graduates, the job offer rate at 4-6 months post-graduation ranged from 80% in the West to 87% in the North Atlantic to 94% in the Midwest to 96% in the South.

Source: 2013 Employment of New Nurse Graduates and Employer Preferences for Baccalaureate-Prepared Nurses, AACN.

There are other reasons to believe that the nursing shortage is not over yet and will continue for some time.
A recent survey by AMN Healthcare found that there is a 17% vacancy rate for nurses in hospitals in the United States and that 66% of hospital executives believe there is a shortage of nurses.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (popularly known as Obamacare) is also projected to significantly increase nurse employment and the number of open nursing jobs as millions of previously uninsured Americans gain access to health insurance coverage in 2014. The demand for nurse practitioners is projected to increase as healthcare organizations seek to alleviate a shortage of physicians and primary care providers by switching to new models of primary care where nurse practitioners and advanced practice registered nurses will assume an expanded role in providing healthcare. As the nursing job market continues to evolve, it is clear that nurses will need at least a BSN to remain competitive and that nurses with advanced post-graduate training such as an MSN degree will have an even greater competitive advantage in the nursing job market.

Real Nurse Photo Contest!

Posted in Nursing News

 

A collage of some of the photos that have been submitted to the Real Nurse Photo Contest. See all the photos at RealNursePhotos.com

A collage of some of the photos that have been submitted to the Real Nurse Photo Contest. See all the photos at RealNursePhotos.com

NursingJobs.us recently announced its Real Nurse Photo Contest:

Are you a nurse? We are offering $100 in our nurse photo contest!

Real portrayals of the nursing profession are few and far between and instead of settling for buying fake-looking models posing in Halloween nurse costumes for our stock photographs we at NursingJobs.us figured that we might as well try asking the many nurses who use our nursing job board to send us their own, real, photos and let us use them to better represent the face of nursing to the world.


You can see some of the photos that have been submitted at RealNursePhotos.com.  Want to see your image there and possibly win $100?  The contest doesn’t end until March 15, 2013 so there is still time for you to enter!  Find the contest rules and instructions for submitting photos at the Real Nurse Photo Contest announcement page.

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Protecting nurses from workplace violence in Montana

Posted in Nursing News

Montana State Rep. Kathy Swanson, Sponsor of HB 269

Montana State Rep. Kathy Swanson, Sponsor of HB 269

Reports and surveys by the American Nurses Association, the Emergency Nurses Association and the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that workplace violence is widespread in the healthcare sector.   In an attempt to address the problem, thirty-eight state legislatures have enacted laws that enhance criminal charges and penalties for those who assault nurses and other healthcare workers.   These are similar to the criminal statutes that exist in nearly every state that provide for enhanced penalties for those who assault police officers and other public servants.   Yet there are still a dozen states that don’t have such laws to protect healthcare workers.  In some of those states there are enhanced penalties for assaults against sports officials (such as baseball umpires and basketball referees) but no enhanced penalties for assaulting a nurse, doctor or other healthcare worker.   One state that has yet to enact a law to deter workplace violence against healthcare workers is Montana.

Last December, the Montana Nurses Association and Montana State House Representative Kathy Swanson decided to change that with the introduction of Montana House Bill No. 269 (“An Act Creating The Offense Of Assault On A Health Care Provider Or Emergency Responder; And Providing Penalties”).

In a letter to the editor published yesterday, Don Judge from the Montana Nurses Association reiterated some of the reasons for the legislation:

HB 269 is simply a law designed to protect healthcare workers from vicious assault in their workplace. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, over 500,000 nurses are violently assaulted in their workplace every year! Workplace violence against healthcare workers ranks no. 1 with over 50 percent of all workplace assaults occurring in healthcare situations. This situation is especially bad in Emergency Rooms where fully 54.8 percent of nurses surveyed reported being assaulted at work in the last seven days.

Montana is not immune from such assaults, at least three nurses in our state received injuries from workplace assaults last year which will likely prevent them from ever returning to their chosen occupation. HB 269 recognizes this problem and creates a separate offence of assaulting a healthcare worker.

A hearing on the bill was held on January 31, 2013.  There were a number of objections to the bill by the American Civil Liberties Union and advocates for the disabled and mentally ill.  On February 7, 2013, the bill was tabled by the Judiciary Committee of the Montana House of Representatives.  It is likely to be reintroduced with amendments to satisfy some of the concerns raised.

Here are some video excerpts from the hearing:

Kathy Swanson introduces Montana HB 269

Montana nurse Rebecca Sturdevant on Montana HB 269

Nurses speak out in support of Montana HB 269

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The Affordable Care Act

Posted in Nursing, Nursing News


D.aniel – Fotolia

The election is over and Barack Obama has won a second term. Although many people may have been hedging their bets, waiting on the outcome of the election, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. What does this mean for Medicare, healthcare institutions, healthcare workers and the general public? As nurses, we care for our patients regardless of insurance status, but we all know that insurance is a major issue for many of our patients. Keeping in mind that some of the key features won’t be implemented until 2014, here are some of the highlights of the Act and how they will affect individuals and corporate entities:

Health insurance: At the present time, no one is required to have health insurance, but by 2014 this will change. Most individuals will be required to have health insurance or face a fine of up to 1% of their income (or $95 per year, whichever is greater). By 2016 the fine will rise to 2.5% of income or $695, whichever is greater. For families, the penalty for not having insurance will be 2.5% of the combined household income. However, these requirements could be waived when financial hardship is an issue. Some states have passed laws to block the necessity of carrying health insurance; however, federal law supersedes state law. Many more people are expected to be eligible for Medicaid or will be able to access federal subsidies to buy health insurance.

Current health insurance plans: For those individuals who already have insurance through their current employer, it is possible that nothing will change. However, employers may change premiums, network coverage, co-pay amounts and deductibles, just as they could before the Affordable Care Act. Some of the effects of the Affordable Care Act have already been enacted; for example, lifetime coverage limits have now been banned, and adult children (up to the age of 26) who don’t have health insurance through work can stay on their parent’s plan.

Medicaid: For people who want health insurance but can’t afford it, starting in 2014 the federal government is offering to expand the Medicaid program so that individuals and families who earn incomes at or lower than 133% of the federal poverty level will be eligible for this benefit. This is not yet a hard-and-fast law — the governors of several states, such as Alabama, have stated that they will refuse the expansion of Medicaid and the Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot be mandated into making this change to Medicaid. For people who earn too much money for Medicaid but still can’t afford health insurance, government subsidies will be put in place to allow them to purchase insurance from state-based exchanges, which will sell insurance to small businesses and individuals.

Seniors: Changes to the Medicare Part D prescription plan will mean that seniors will only be required to pay for 25% of their prescription costs, without a certain initial cost to be paid first before coverage begins. Preventive services will be expanded and seniors will be allowed a free annual wellness visit.

Other changes:
– No out-of-pocket costs for certain screening tests (i.e., mammography, cholesterol tests)

– Coverage cannot be cancelled if you become ill (known as rescission)

– Coverage for pre-existing conditions cannot be refused (for children this is already the case, for adults will be enacted by 2014)

– Rebates to be provided to customers if they spend less than 80-85% of premium dollars on medical care

Like it or hate it, agree or disagree, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. Although there is apt to be some confusion over the next two years, as well as some contention as the last kinks in the plan get worked out between Democrats and Republicans, the end result will be that most people will have health insurance by 2014.

Addicted to Helping People

Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties

 

joyfnp/ Fotolia

A new book focusing on American nurses is nominally a book of portraits, intended for coffee tables. But a doctor writing in the New York Times, Abigal Zuker, found the the narrative to be the most affecting part, hitting her “in the solar plexus.”

For example, she appreciated the observation of a hospice nurse named Jason Short in rural Kentucky who has had a number of jobs, including auto mechanic and commercial trucker. He turned to nursing when the economy went under. This pragmatic decision turned into something more, and Mr. Short says he’s a nurse for good. “Once you get a taste for helping people, it’s kind of addictive,” he says in the book, called “The American Nurse.”

The book tells the stories of 75 nurses. Some of them wanted to be nurses from when they were very young, while others took Mr. Short’s more pragmatic approach. All of the nurses profiled exhibit the same “surprised gratitude,” according to Dr. Zuker.

The nurses profiled come from many different health care settings from many different places in America, ranging from large academic institutions like Johns Hopkins to very small places like the Villa Loretto Nursing Home in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin. There are administrators, home health care workers, emergency room nurses, military nurses, and much more.

All describe unique professional paths in short first-person essays culled from video interviews conducted by the photographer Carolyn Jones. Their faces beam out from the book in Ms. Jones’s black-and-white headshots, a few posing with a favorite patient or with their work tools — a medevac helicopter, a stack of prosthetic limbs or a couple of goats.

But even the best photographs are too static to capture people who never stop moving once they get to work. For a real idea of what goes on in their lives, you have to listen to them talk.

Here is Mary Helen Barletti, an intensive care nurse in the Bronx: “My whole life I’ve marched to a the beat of a different drummer. I used to have purple hair, which I’d blow-dry straight up. I wore tight jeans, high heels and — God forgive me — fur (now I am an animal rights activist). My patients loved it. They said I was like sunshine coming into their room.”

Says Judy Ramsay, a pediatric nurse in Chicago: “For twelve years I took care of children who would never get better. People ask how I could do it, but it was the most fulfilling job of my life. We couldn’t cure these kids, but we could give them a better hour or even a better minute of life. All we wanted to do was make their day a little brighter.”

Says Brad Henderson, a nursing student in Wyoming: “I decided to be a nurse because taking care of patients interested me. Once I started, nursing just grabbed me and made me grow up.”

Says Amanda Owen, a wound care nurse at Johns Hopkins: “My nickname here is ‘Pus Princess.’ I don’t talk about my work at cocktail parties.”

John Barbe, a hospice nurse in Florida, sums it up: “When I am out in the community and get asked what I do for a living, I say that I work at Tidewell Hospice, and there’s complete silence. You can hear the crickets chirping. It doesn’t matter because I love what I do; I can’t stay away from this place.”

The Skills of Advocacy

Posted in Nursing, Nursing News

 

5AM Images/ Fotolia

Nurses are often strong advocates for their patients, but have traditionally been less effective in advocating for their own needs. Advocacy can be defined as supporting a cause — it’s as simple as that. Advocates are people who identify a need or an issue that must be addressed, then work through different channels to achieve a goal. Political lobbyists have perfected advocacy, but nurses have been slower to mobilize and understand that real change in healthcare is possible when nurses become strong advocates for themselves, for their peers, and for the nursing profession.

Identifying a problem and desiring change is not enough — nurses must utilize the skills they learn in advocating for their patients and transfer these skills to a broader arena in advocating for the nursing profession. So what skills are needed? Karen Tomajan (Medscape, 2012) outlines the necessary skills as follows:

Problem solving: As nurses, we problem-solve on a daily basis. Problem solving involves identifying an issue and developing a strategy to solve the issue or problem. While this is easy enough to do in our daily working life, it becomes more difficult when advocating for a broader issue or change. The bigger the arena and the issue, the greater the number of people that must be convinced and the longer it takes to effect change. Doing our homework beforehand thus becomes necessary if we want to be effective advocates. This may involve identifying key stakeholders, researching the issue at hand to ferret out compelling evidence to support the chosen stance, and determining the best time and place to go forward.

Communication: Although we talk about communication a great deal in nursing and communicate on a daily basis, advocacy means effectively delivering your message to the right people in the right way. Communication may be verbal, written or electronic in nature and must fit the target audience’s needs. Using real examples backed up by facts, rather than opinions, can make an argument more compelling. Discussing the positive impact of an issue or change is crucial to winning the approval of those you have identified as key decision-makers.

Influence: Influence refers to one’s ability to alter individual or group thoughts, actions or beliefs. Advocacy requires influence to succeed, and the person or persons delivering the message must be credible, trustworthy and competent in order to successfully sway others to their position. This requires the ability to build a compelling case for change, back up the argument with hard facts and convey the positive impact that the desired change will have on the issue at hand. Influence must be tempered with relatively small amounts of persuasion which, according to Tomajan, can backfire if utilized too heavily.

Collaboration: As nurses, we frequently work with a wide variety of other healthcare professionals. Advocacy for a cause may require nurses to move beyond other healthcare workers and seek out groups or individuals that can further the cause, such as people who will be affected by the issue or individuals/groups with their own intersecting agendas (i.e. members of the legal community, government or special interest groups). Collaboration requires mutual respect, trust and credibility, as well as frequent and honest communication. What is the end result of collaboration? When groups with similar concerns or interests work together, they can achieve more than if they were to tackle the issue alone; in other words, there is strength in numbers.

Given the rapid changes occurring in the healthcare system, nurses need to come together to advocate for themselves and the profession. As more and more pressure is placed on nurses to do more with less, advocating for our patients is no longer enough — we must also advocate for ourselves to ensure that the future of healthcare is bright and sustainable. As Tomajan points out, “Despite nursing’s strengths inherent in its size, diversity, and unique relationship with the public, the full potential for influence by the nursing profession has yet to be realized.”

Getting Political

Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing News, Nursing Specialties

 

pkchai/ Fotolia

“Healthcare is political,” says a nurse quoted in this article on Nurse.com. The article looks at why some nurses have become politically active.

Pat Barnett was motivated to get involved in the legislative process in 1976, when she was a young nurse working for a state psychiatric hospital. At the time, deinstitutionalization was underway, with attempts by the state to move people from state facilities to the community. Barnett felt that she couldn’t just stand by and watch what she saw as a great injustice, as people were discharged from the state institutions but then had nowhere to go, and were given very little support. “So you would see people end up in the No. 1 institution for the mentally ill,” says Barnett. “Jail.”

She testified along with other nurses and they were able to get more funding for the mental health system, allowing some facilities to remain open.

Barnett points out that nursing is a highly regulated profession, which means that it’s especially important for nurses to be active and engaged politically.

The current state of healthcare and the upcoming presidential election add to that urgency, Barnett says. The points out that the Affordable Care Act alone has a great impact on nurses. If it stands, there will be 900,000 new patients in the state of New Jersey who will have new health coverage. Right now there are 1,400 too few primary care doctors — Barnett sees nurses as possible saviors.

“We have 5,000 advanced practice nurses, 80% of whom actually practice in primary care, and many of those take Medicaid and Medicare patients,” Barnett said. “So I think nurses need to be involved because the Affordable Care Act creates opportunity for nurses, whether or not they are advanced practice nurses. Also, there is money in the Affordable Care Act to create nurse-run clinics — and money for nursing education. That happened only because the American Nurses Association, other nursing associations and individual nurses lobbied the legislature and their individual legislators to make that happen.”

The Institute of Medicine weighed in on the importance of nursing input in its October 2010 report, “The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.” According to the IOM, nursing is at a pivotal point.

“Nurses’ roles, responsibilities and education should change significantly to meet the increased demand for care that will be created by healthcare reform and to advance improvements in America’s increasingly complex health system,” the IOM announced after releasing its report.

Even as the largest healthcare profession, nursing’s voices often are silent or ignored, according to Vance.

“I believe our values and concerns should be heard to help our patients and our profession,” she said. “We have to decide whether we want to make our voices heard, [and have] input in the decision-making around our practice. Or, they’ll make these decisions without our input.”

Many nurses, like a number of Americans, think politics is a dirty word, according to Linda Parry-Carney, RN-BC, MA, education specialist at Hackensack (N.J.) University Medical Center.

Parry-Carney is a former president of the New Jersey State Nurses Association and the current chairwoman of the board for the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing.

What nurses might not realize, she said, is they already are politicians, whether they’re negotiating with patients at the bedside, with employers, on hospital committees or as members of organizations.

Legislators don’t act alone. They make decisions based on what their constituents want, according to Parry-Carney.

“[As NJSNA president,] when I needed to talk to the Governor’s staff, an assemblyperson, senator or the commissioner of health, it wasn’t just me sitting in front of him,” she said. “He knew I represented the interests of all the people who were members of our organization, and, in fact, all nurses in New Jersey.”

One nurse sharing his or her perspective helps formulate strategies that groups use in an effort to influence policy and make changes.

“Every nurse should be a ‘political’ nurse because we are such a caring, large constituency for people,” Vance said. “We are important to society. We’re important to people. So we have to take our practice beyond the bedside, beyond the school, beyond our research, and set it in a larger way into community involvement, which means being an activist, being a volunteer, being an informed citizen.”

Mandatory Flu Shots for Healthcare Workers

Posted in Nurse Safety, Nursing, Nursing News

 

Rhode Island has officially become the first state in the United States to mandate flu shots for all healthcare workers, despite objections from unions and the local affiliate of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). This means that all healthcare workers employed by hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, or any other healthcare organizations in the state will be forced to roll up their sleeves.

Of course, anyone who has a valid medical reason can be exempted from getting a flu shot. Employees can also refuse to get a flue shot by signing a document; however, these workers must wear a mask at all times when in contact with patients when flu activity is noted in the state.

Arguments Against

– The “Nanny State” argument: Our bodies and anything we put in our bodies should not be controlled by the government. Many people disagree that the government has any right to tell healthcare workers to get a vaccine that is potentially dangerous and could cause dangerous side effects. This argument seems to be the most commonly cited argument against getting an influenza vaccine. Health concerns aside, many people are firmly against the government forcing healthcare workers to get a flu shot, as a matter of principle.

– Ineffectiveness of the vaccine: Many of those against mandatory vaccination state that they do not believe the vaccination is effective in preventing influenza.

– Danger associated with vaccination: Many healthcare workers state that they became ill after receiving a vaccination at some time in the past, and so they have refused to get the vaccine ever since. Although serious reactions are rare, the fact that serious reactions do sometimes occur, even if very rarely, makes many people adamant that they will not get the shot and will not be forced into it by anyone, especially the government.

Arguments For

– Patient protection: We owe it to our patients to get vaccinated. In doing so, we protect those who are vulnerable (i.e., infants, the elderly, immunosuppressed individuals) and could potentially die should they come in contact with the virus.

– Herd immunity: When a large enough portion of the population is immunized against a particular disease, most members of the community will be protected because there is little opportunity for the disease to spread. Herd immunity protects the most vulnerable members of society and, as nurses, it is our duty to protect others.

– Role modeling: Many nurses state that, although they are not against the vaccine per se, they are against the vaccine for themselves. As nurses we are role models for others. When members of the community hear nurses speak out against influenza vaccination, it makes them less likely to get vaccinated, as nurses are respected as being knowledgeable about disease prevention.

– Vaccination reduces sick time: When nurses are immunized, there is less sick time, resulting in lower absenteeism, less overtime and less need to replace ill staff members. This could be an enormous cost-saving measure at a time when many organizations are struggling financially.

There are other arguments, but these arguments cover some of the biggest reasons for and against influenza vaccination. When it comes right down to it, we all have choices. Even the nurses in Rhode Island have a choice — they can get the vaccine or wear a mask when in contact with patients during the height of flu season. Getting the vaccine must be a personal choice for all nurses, one that many nurses struggle with every year.