The latest edition of Change of Shift , nursing blog carnival extraordinaire, is now up at "20 Out of 10 ", a nursing blog which is a new discovery for this nurse blogger.
Please pay a visit if you can!
Posted by: NurseKeith in Untagged on
Jun 24, 2008
How much do nurses do that goes unseen, undocumented, and unsung? How much of nursing is of an invisible nature, unnoticed yet crucial to the work of nursing?
So much of what we do as nurses has to be quantified, qualified, charted, and reduced to letters and numbers on a page. Yet there is so much that we do as nurses that is simply beyond documentation and quantification.
A smile, a hand on a shoulder, a chat with a colleague that clears the way for a clinical brainstorm---so many moments of our days are crucial aspects of what we do, yet impossible to describe or record.
Nursing is certainly a science, but there is an artful aspect of our work---and a spiritual aspect, of course---that is essentially beyond words.
-----
NurseKeith is a blogger, nurse, consultant and writer. Please feel free to visit his blog, Digital Doorway .
Posted by: NurseKeith in visiting nursing, unions on
Jun 19, 2008
I have completed my first week of orientation at my new job as a per diem hospice nurse at a local VNA. While I still feel like an impostor who knows nothing, my ignorance painfully obvious to anyone who looks at all closely, I'm feeling comfortable and warmly welcomed to my new workplace (even as contract negotiations between the union and my new employer drag into their tenth month).
Interestingly, I was allowed to leave 90 minutes early yesterday, and only today I read in the paper that there was a picket line in front of the office not an hour after I was sent home. Did my new boss know there was going to be a picket line? Did she send me home so that I wouldn't see it? Did she want to spare me the discomfort of not knowing what to do if I was caught in the middle between my new employer and my picketing colleagues?
This union stuff is all new to me, and I don't quite know what to make of it. Still, if the negotiations increase my hourly rate, I won't complain.....
Tomorrow I begin orientation at a new facility where I will begin training for a dual position on the hospice and palliative care teams of a local visiting nurse agency. It is run under the auspices of a local hospital that is part of a larger regional medical system from a neighboring state. Bureaucracy may be an issue, but that remains to be seen.
I feel very slight trepidation as I embark into another unknown, being the new kid once again, feeling stupid and ignorant. New computer system, new documentation, new ways of working. It's a stretch, but a good stretch, and I think I'm ready. Anyway, tomorrow's the day, so I have to dive in.
Posted by: NurseKeith in nurse blogs, blogs on
Jun 15, 2008
Disappearing John is the blog of a male nurse deep in the heart of Arizona. John tells some personal tales of undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2004, losing more than 200 pounds, and working as an ER nurse in a busy hospital.
John's blog is always interesting, often entertaining, and a very nice mix of the professional and the personal. I highly recommend stopping by from time to time, and note that his blog is also listed in Nurse LinkUp "Links" section.
Stop by his blog, leave a comment, and tell him Keith at Nurse LinkUp sent you!
-----
NurseKeith is a blogger, consultant, nurse and writer, who maintains a blog called Digital Doorway .
