Someone posed a question to a group I belong to and I found it to be so true today. When will it stop being so hard to lose a patient? Do nurses ever get used to this? No, because we care. Often we don’t have much of a chance to get close or form a relationship, but it still hurts. Then there are those that instantly find their way into our hearts. Perhaps they remind us of someone, or just maybe they make a footprint on our hearts that’s going to stay there forever. Because we care My answer to this is always that we hurt because we care. And…
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Nurses need to stand up and be heard
Sorry I kind of took a few weeks off to deal with the COVID-19 impact on my family. Hope you all are well and safe. This issue with COVID-19 has been a struggle for nurses and healthcare workers everywhere, and there isn’t any real light at the end of the tunnel. There are a few glimmers of hope for a vaccine for the novel Corona virus by the the end of the year, more likely early 2021. In order to help improve healthcare in general, nurses are going to need to stand up and be heard! Not unlike many others, I have not escaped direct impact. A close family member…
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More than one right answer – learning critical thinking skills
For the present, the COVID19 virus has students around the world pretty much excluded from in-person, hands-on nursing programs of any sort. Although some classes have been able to carry on with online sessions, these may be even more challenging for some students who struggle with this venue. Nursing at all levels from CNA to Advanced Practice and Ph.D. programs, is a very different type of learning altogether. All our lives as students there has been basically one right answer for test questions. For example, 2+2=4 in math no matter where you are and what language you speak. Common core and other ridiculous versions may take you through multiple unnecessary…
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Time to Enforce Safe Living to Defeat COVID19
In the US we used to live in just a few years ago, the public health reporting of communicable diseases both bacterial and viral was such a very different picture from what we’re seeing on the news today. We need to factor in the vast number of people who aren’t being tested and realize how very many more people are actually sick with the coronavirus COVID19 or are positive carriers spreading the disease faster than we can keep up. That number is one we can only estimate in our minds. But the point is, the real picture of this disease is much grimmer than we know – and than we…
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What a way to celebrate the Year of the Nurse and Midwife!
Misinformation about the coronavirus COVID19 has been rampant for weeks, and now that factual and informative information along with strong directives from the CDC has emerged, we’re experiencing the exponential growth we’ve heard about in locations such as Asia, Europe, and Australia. Nurses are scrambling to meet the needs of patients in every possible setting. In this Year of the Nurse and Midwife, no one could have imagined we’d find ourselves in the midst of such a crisis. But nurses are the backbone of the health care system and will work to educate the lay public on how to prevent infection and protect themselves and their loved ones from exposure.…