Guest post from Debbie Swanson Travel nursing was already complicated to begin with, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has only made it even more complex. Some nurses were swamped with assignments while others’ work dried up. Moving became vastly more difficult, and hospital best practices change seemingly every day. In the midst of this, travel nurses are more important than ever, and they’re helping to fill in the gaps at overwhelmed facilities in COVID-19 hot spots. Learning how to navigate COVID-19 as a travel nurse is essential. Before you pack up your cotton scrubs and comfortable nursing shoes, here are seven things you need to know about navigating COVID-19 as…
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Because we care it won’t ever get easier
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…