Related: Bureaucracy, Patient Advocate, Professionalism

Love the current proposal or hate it, it's hard to deny that this country needs health care reform.  And as a nurse married to a small business owner, I am certainly interested--and invested--in the topic.

As health care professionals, we have a first row seat to the drama as it unfolds.  We know the stories of patients who have insufficient or no coverage.  Who have not [...]

Related: Attitude, Boundaries, Caregivers, Caring, Charting, Expectations, Patient Advocate, Patients

Rooming patients, giving injections, charting, answering the phone, taking messages.  These are all listed in my job description with a whole list of other normal office nursing kinds of things. 

Not listed, but also expected: picking up paperclips from the floor, trying to keep my piles neat, and telling someone when the Kleenex are running low.  And really, truth be told, I probably spend as [...]

Related: Attitude, Caregiving, Caring, Patient Advocate

I work in a relatively small ER: 24 beds including hall beds. I am a newcomer to this area, and almost everyone has experience in emergency medicine (in one capacity or another) for much longer than I have. Perhaps this is partly why I interact with patients the way I do, as opposed to the way I see many other nurses do.

From my observations, [...]

Related: Caregiving, Compassion, Confidence, Emotions, Failure, Fear, Feelings, Patient Advocate, Problem Solving

I spent last week as a camp nurse in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  For the most part, I spent my days giving kids their meds, removing splinters, putting band-aids on scrapes, and generally being a mom.  It didn't take as much skill as a ready smile and encouraging word.

Then Wednesday night hit.  It was the beginning of a 24-hour period that had my adrenaline [...]

Related: Boundaries, Bureaucracy, Management, Patient Advocate, Patients

A nurse never wants to face a HIPAA violation.

I've never experienced the ramifications of such a violation personally, but I have seen the aftermath when others have been suspected.

Often the violation stems from one of man's greatest assets: curiosity.  We're geared for acquiring knowledge; yet some things we might be better off being unaware of completely.

Once on the unit I was working, a staff [...]

Related: Attitude, Caring, Charting, Learning, Mindset, New Nurse, Patient Advocate, Seasoned Nurses, Success

Nursing is all about learning.  If you think it's all about the patient, then you're missing the big picture.

I remember one of my clinical instructors praising me for a care plan I had written; it received the highest grade that particular week.  Her caveat: listen and learn during clinical so I could improve.

Laziness prevailed.

The next week, I wrote essentially the same care plan. This time [...]

Related: Assertiveness, Attitude, Caring, Conflict, Doctor-Nurse Relationships, Patient Advocate, Patients, Power, Prioritizing, Respect

As Doctor Pru stood there reading the file her mouth turned down into a frown.

"Who triaged this patient?" She called out across the room to anyone who would pay her attention. Everyone ignored her except me. I knew whose file she had and I knew she'd make a fuss, not because there was a problem, but because she loved to pick faults and seemed to [...]

Related: Attitude, Career, Doctor-Nurse Relationships, Education, Mindset, Patient Advocate, Stereotypes

I am an RN studying to be a Physician Assistant. I have been training in the medical model for PA school after my nursing school education. I’ve essentially sat in on the training of both MDs and RNs and can tell you stereotypes are ingrained on both sides.

Doctors are groomed to expect to have nurses “bugging” them for orders, calling them with useless and non-important [...]

Related: Assertiveness, Authority, Communication, Confidence, Doctor-Nurse Relationships, Labor and Delivery Nursing, Patient Advocate, Professionalism

Working the night shift on a Labor & Delivery floor, I often know what’s going on with the laboring mother-to-be better than the doc does. And sometimes, I actually have to tell the doctors what needs to be done.

Of course that’s a challenge. Who am I? I think. They’re the doctor. They know best; they are “above” me. But when you are looking out for [...]

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 [...]