By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing Specialties
Is there a more stressful place to work than the ER? People deal with the stress in a variety of ways — hobbies, friendships, and often a hefty dose of black humor. Nurse Jason Hautala has found that haiku gives him a way to process the stress and drama of his job. Given the nature of his job as an emergency department nurse, Hautala has learned that friends are not eager to hear about his work. “They don’t want to…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs
Here’s another story about nurses being told that they cannot work with patients for reasons unrelated to their skills per se — in this case it is about the nurse’s gender rather than race, though. A male registered nurse says that he was fired because some Muslim people in his community of Dearborn, MI were uncomfortable with him treating Muslim women. John Benitez Jr. filed a sex discrimination suit Wednesday in Detroit U.S. District Court after getting the go-ahead from…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs
We recently excerpted an article about nursing mannequins, which allow nurses to practice their skills before they unleash the needles (and other indignities) on a real human. However, not everyone has access to that kind of high-tech help. So what is that like for the nurses who have to practice drawing blood for the first time, for example? Theresa Brown, writing in the NYT’s Well blog, describes the day she learned how to draw blood, as an instructor looked on:…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs
Napping on the job used to be cause for immediate dismissal in most professions, but nurses on the night shift can become better, healthier nurses if they take the occasional nap. In a study conducted by the University of Manitobain Winnipeg, researchers identified several key points that support the importance of a nightly snooze by the nursing staff. Taking into account a number of variables — work schedules, environment, nap vs. non-napping experiences, perceptions of the subject matter, barriers to…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing School
The robots don’t give the students answers, and it’s not because the robots are dumb, either. They’re dummies that are robots, and they provide learning opportunities for nursing students while sparing actual humans the discomfort that results from being practiced upon. (I remember my mom practicing her blood drawing technique on my dad when she was in nursing school and had graduated from oranges. He didn’t appreciate it much.)
By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Nursing Specialties
Are you a Nurse Practitioner? If so, this is your week! National NP Week is November 13th through 19th.This article celebrates NPs and the important place they have in healthcare. NPs are licensed, expert clinicians who have been providing primary, acute and specialty healthcare services for nearly half a century. In addition to diagnosing and managing acute and chronic illness, NPs place a strong emphasis on health promotion and disease prevention, working as a partner with their patients to help…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs, Travel Nursing
Veteran’s Day has special resonance for 93-year-old Edna Bremenkamp Poole. Not only did her husband serve in World War II, but she did too, as a nurse. In this article she looks back at her service: Poole is a World War II veteran who crossed both oceans in her five years of service. In 1942 at the age of 24, she enlisted as a nurse. The native of Colby, KS already had two brothers serving, one in the Signal Corps…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs
There are many reasons a patient may be happy or unhappy with his or her hospital stay. The most obvious reason is whether the health issue necessitating that stay has been resolved. But there are many other reasons that patients might or might not be happy, from whether the sink in their room was too small to the lack of current and interesting magazines at hand. The New York Times explains how these seemingly small issues can have a big…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Jobs
Nurses encounter difficult patients all the time; occasionally, family members chime in and offer their hostility as well. But as part of a team of nurses caring for patients in an already stressful situation, nurses don’t expect to encounter incivility in their colleagues. Aren’t they supposed to have your back? Unfortunately incivility is no longer limited to patients and family members. When viewed on a colleague to colleague basis, incivility is on the increase. Dr. Cynthia Clark and Sara Ahten,…
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By Jenna
Posted in Nursing, Nursing Specialties
ABC reports that a nursing-service company is being sued by four women who allege that civil right violations occurred. “Accord employs a policy of illegal discrimination in the hiring and placement of its home healthcare employees for the express purpose of accommodating the illegal preferences of its clients,” the lawsuit alleges. Accord has denied the allegations. The lawsuit alleges that Accord “routinely declined to place nurses and nurse aides they described as ‘too black’ or ‘too foreign’ or ‘too old.’”…
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