Related: Attitude, Caring, Doctors, Learning, Support

My friend's dad had a triple bypass after a heart attack over the weekend.

I saw through her eyes how overwhelming, traumatic and surreal a health crisis can be. I've also seen how said crisis can be transformed by a caring medical staff.

My friend's world revolves around taking care of her family, working on her degree, church and school involvement, and writing. Never [...]

Related: Balance, Caregivers, Caring, Charting, Expectations, Mindset, Morale, New Grad, New Nurse, New Nurse Tips, Organizational Skills, Patient Advocate, Patients, Prioritizing, Professionalism

As a new nurse, your goal is to make a difference. You want to heal people. You want to engage with patients, communicating to them your professionalism and that you care. But countless tasks and a steep learning curve may prevent you from the patient interaction you were expecting. According to Donna Cardillo, considered to be the “guru of career development” for new nurses, this [...]

Related: Assertiveness, Attitude, Caring, Doctor-Nurse Relationships, New Nurse Tips, Patience, Patients

In 2008 I will:

Be more patient with difficult patients.

Be more patient with difficult families.

Be more patient with myself.

Be more assertive with difficult doctors.

Be less difficult to work with.

Be more assertive with anyone who keeps me from giving my patients the best possible care.

Be more accepting of working the crummy shifts.

Be more accepting of being the "new nurse".

Stop spending more than I have so I don't [...]

Related: Attitude, Career, Caregivers, Caring, Patients, Quitting, Student Nurse

When my boyfriend told his mother, who's a nurse, that I started a nursing program, I think she thought I was going into it for the money. I'm not going to lie, I was.

The first day of lecture, the instructor said to us, "Walk out of this room if you're getting into nursing for the money." Of course, no one left. Then at midterm, many [...]

Related: Attitude, Caring, Learning, Mindset, Non-Verbal Language, Patients, Student Nurse

As a nursing student, I realize that I have much to learn about dealing with difficult patients. This last semester I was assigned a patient on a med-surg floor who was known to be “contrary." The staff nurse taking care of her was fresh out of school, too (just over a year), and the two of us were trying to take care of this woman--without [...]

Related: Caring, Spirituality

I was sitting with my daughter at Mayo Clinic, a large medical complex in Rochester, Minnesota, and considered to be one of the leading medical research institutions in North America. It's the place to be if you've exhausted all other options.

While waiting for our next appointment, we grabbed lunch at a cafe. A friend back home had told me that a mutual acquaintance would [...]

Related: Caring, Death, Emotions, Feelings, Patients, Spirituality

When I was a little girl, I always was attracted to the "injury of the day" on the playground. The more traumatic, the better. It didn't have to be bloody, it just had to be dramatic. I was literally drawn to the banged-up child, crying on the blacktop. I couldn't stay away.

Even as a child, I had the heart of a [...]

Related: Caregivers, Caring, Patient Advocate, Patients, Time

It was my mom's birthday yesterday. She said I gave her the best present she's ever gotten: me for a day.

We hung out in her apartment organizing old family pictures, reminiscing about people and places in our past. We met my brother for lunch and did some more "Do you remember when...?" Funny thing is, my mother, who has Alzheimer's, can't remember most things. Yet [...]

Related: Caring, Feelings, Humor, Mentor, Morale, Patients

Many of us have been hurt by destructive forms of humor. As a fourth- and fifth-grader, I was very overweight and other children often would ridicule me. As adults, we know that being “tricked”--or being the brunt of a joke--is not healthy humor.

I learned at an early age—from a wonderful mentor—that the secret to dealing with destructive humor is this: “If you can [...]

Related: Caring, Confidence

Jana, Mrs. Goetz, Mom. These are some of the titles I answer to everyday. The other one I hear on a regular basis is Nurse Jana. Not by the people I see at my nursing job, but by the people I hang with in my everyday life.

I'm the go-to-gal. If someone's kid just fell off the play-set, if their husband has a deep cough and [...]