Nurse Blogs

Yesterday, I called the community health center where I sometimes work as a per diem nurse, asking if they needed any help. I didn't really help out there all summer because they hired several school nurses who needed temp work for the summer, so now that Fall is here (well, almost), it seems my services are needed again several times a week.

Now, I am not one to complain, and I do what's asked of me in any given situation. When I go to the health center, what they really need help with is processing med refill requests. It is, I must say, not the most glamorous of tasks, and I basically have to sit at a computer all day shifting data around. Still, I appreciate the work, and appreciate being of assistance to professionals that I like and care about. 

Watching the nurses run and run all day, I realize that I don't want to work in the community health center any more (beyond my current per diem capacity, that is). I realize I am looking for my niche, and for now I can handle mindless med refill requests for ten hours a week until I figure out what's next.

As for my other work, I write content and otherwise take care of Nurse LinkUp's daily operations, and I write the occasional article for NurseConnect. When I get the occasional call, I do per diem work for a local VNA and Hospice organization. I also sometimes work as a consultant for my old non-profit nurse care management agency where I slogged away more than full-time from 2000 to early 2008. With n application pending at a local inpatient psych unit, I still feel uncertain where my future as a nurse lies. 

Anyway, mindless med refills, home visits, website administration, writing, consulting---it's all good (as the young people say), and I am lucky to have so many choices. So what if I don't know what the future holds. At least there's a future to behold......

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Well, I did it. After twelve years of eschewing taking a job in a hospital, I have applied for a part-time position in a local inpatient psychiatric unit. Things have been very slow at all of my per diem jobs, and while I'm very hesitant at this juncture to commit to a solid position, finances are telling me that it may be time to at least have 16 or 20 hours of assured work each week. So, this 24-hour per week position consisting of two 12-hour shifts may fit the bill.

Although I swore off the dreaded "two years of Medical-Surgical nursing after graduation" (something I was told at the time was professional suicide), I just recently decided to apply for this position as a stop-gap measure at a time when I am need of more regular work. Granted, I have been quite determined in my anti-hospital stance, but working in a psychiatric milieu is a far cry from the rigors of Med-Surg, and since I've done such a great deal of outpatient psychiatric nursing, perhaps it's high time I take a peek "on the inside".

Anyway, I haven't even had a call back for an interview yet, so please stay tuned for the developments vis-a-vis this interesting turn of events.

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That old subject of uniforms and professionalism keeps coming up here and there. All of those scrubs with teddy-bears and angels hearts and flowers---I understand the sentiment, but I feel personally that it is making us look less and less professional.

Some facilities are now mandating that each clinical discipline wear a certain color uniform or scrub so that employees, patients and visitors can tell who performs what function on the facility staff. The more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. 

These days, you go into a hospital, and everyone---custodial workers, nutrition workers, nurses, respiratory therapists---they all  wear such disparate clothing and colors that you can never tell anyone apart. 

Doctors wear street clothes and lab coats and this distinguishes them from the pack. Isn't it time for nurses to also distinguish ourselves (but not as angels or teddy-bears)?  

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I am an occasional guest blogger on NurseConnect, and I invite you to read my latest post, Creative Responses to the Nursing Shortage, posted on NurseConnect today. I think the post offers an interesting perspective, detailing ways that individuals, educational institutions, and healthcare facilities are responding to the crisis at hand.

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I am currently reading From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Need to Communicate to the Public, by Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon. I simply cannot recommend this book highly enough for any nurse interested in how nurses are perceived by society at large.

While I have yet to finish the entire book, I can say that Buresh and Gordon are touching on every aspect of nursing that irks me:

Why are nurses not quoted more often as experts on healthcare? 

Why do nurses allow themselves to be portrayed so poorly in the media? 

What is it about nurses that keeps them from taking credit for what they do? 

Why do nurses insist that "doctors cure and nurses care"? Don't we also play a large role in curing? Aren't our interventions important? Are we not more than just handmaidens for doctors? 

Why doesn't the public more fully understand what nurses do? 

From Silence to Voice is excellently written and researched, and I look forward to writing a series of long blog posts on my main blog based on my readings. Please consider ordering a copy for yourself or a friend, and I highly recommend you do so from the authors' website rather than from Amazon or some other corporate interest.

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