Related: Anxiety, Confidence, Emotions, Expectations, Fear, Feelings, Learning, New Nurse, Stress, Student Nurse

I have a friend who's afraid to fly. It takes a Xanax and a glass of wine as soon as the drink cart starts moving to get her through a flight. She learned a long time ago that it was worth the anxiety to get to travel to warm, sandy places with her husband.

We all have things that freak us out a little. [...]

Related: Attitude, Caring, Feelings, Mindset

Nurse Appreciation Week--what exactly does that mean?

Do you feel more appreciated this week than all the others? Does your employer do something special that makes you feel like all the hard work is worth it? Do your patients bend over backwards to give you their thanks?

While it's nice to have a week that's all our own, if we're counting on others to make [...]

Related: Anger, Conflict, Doctor-Nurse Relationships, Emotions, Feelings, Patience, Teamwork

Yesterday the doctor I work for was fuming. He was ticked that I messed up his schedule by adding a patient. After he snipped at me, he stormed off to see the patient, who had a bad leg infection.

The patient evaluation softened the doctor's mood. The guy obviously needed to be seen--and we finished the day right on time.

Apologetic and sheepish, the doc seemed to [...]

Related: Anxiety, Confidence, Death, Emotions, Fear, Feelings, Mistake, New Grad, Quitting

My first nursing job was as a camp nurse the summer I graduated. It seemed like a great way to spend my last free summer while studying for boards. Lots of sun, water, and friends. A week or so after boards (the whole country took a two-day written test on the same days) was the first time I considered quitting nursing. [...]

Related: Assertiveness, Attitude, Authority, Conflict, Expectations, Feelings, New Nurse, Preceptor

When I first started as a new nurse, I had 2-3 patients on my own for the first week. I was given 7 patients after the first week, and then the next day 8!

My preceptor told me to handle all the patients, and if I needed her, to come ask any questions. I handled it the best way I knew how.

But when I asked [...]

Related: Abuse, Authority, Boundaries, Communication, Conflict, Fear, Feelings, Gossip, Hostility, Morale, New Nurse, Non-Verbal Language, Nurse Relationships, Power, Professionalism, Respect, Sabotage, Seasoned Nurses, Support, Teamwork, Violence

A man walked past a few kids with a bucket of sea crabs. One of the crabs was crawling to the top of the bucket, so the man told the boys to get a lid. “Mister, you don’t know anything about crabs,” the boys said. “As soon as that crab gets to the top, the others will pull him right back down. Never fails.”

The expression [...]

Related: Abuse, Assertiveness, Communication, Compliments, Confidence, Conflict, Feelings, Gossip, Handmaidens, Hostility, Morale, New Nurse, Non-Verbal Language, Nurse Relationships, Nursing Shortage, Professionalism, Respect, Sabotage, Truth

What nurse hasn’t heard the phrase “Nurses eat their own.”? You’ve probably witnessed it at some point in your career. Or maybe you’ve personally experienced the burn of cattiness, gossip, condemning verbal attacks, or bullying.

Plain old meanness seems to pervade nursing, and you wonder, Is there anything I can really do about it?

Letting this behavior go on will progressively change nursing for the worse. We’re [...]

Related: Attitude, Feelings, Night Shift, Orientee, Patients

Christmas 1983. I was finishing orientation at my first hospital job and had to spend two weeks working pm's before going on permanent nights. I can't say I was looking forward to giving up every evening over the holidays as the rest of the world partied.

On one of my first evenings, a teenager, a senior in high school, was admitted after a sledding [...]

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: 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 [...]