As the economy begins to recover, more nurses will retire or return to retirement and the nursing shortage will be in full bloom once again. Hospitals need to seriously prepare for this eventuality and start looking hard at ways to keep nurses around. Other employers should sit up and take note as well. An excellent article appeared a few months ago on iVantageHealth.com. Michelle Gray-Bernhardt takes a long honest look at 5 Ways to Make Nurses Want to Stay at Your Hospital. The article looks at issues such as nurse staffing, floating, mandatory overtime, bullying of nurses, non-nursing tasks and interruptions and bad managers. Perhaps the biggest keyword here is…
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Losing Patient Centered Care to Economics??
I certainly hope we can ALL come together as nurses and work to ensure that this does NOT become a trend. The Amanda Trujillo case shows we are headed in that direction. Read this excellent blog post from Nurse Ratched.
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Tips to Keep Your Nursing Career On-Track
At least once a year it is good to take stock of your life and your career and take steps to get yourself back on track, or even to change directions if that is what is needed. Some of the top things you can do for yourself as a nurse to make your career more rewarding and to avoid caregiver fatigue or burnout include the following: 1) Stress management is a must. Learn techniques that work well for you and use them routinely. Exercise, diet and sleep habits should be considered as well. 2) Managing your time efficiently and effectively is vital. Get organized and stay on top of things.…
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An Online Master’s Degree for Working Nurses
For many nurses who work long hours and start out at the low end of the totem pole, it’s a dream to work for some of the magnet status hospitals alongside top doctors and physicians. Nursing students often don’t realize that there are easier ways than slugging it out for years in a hospital. You can gain more experience and training with a master’s degree. While nurses are expected to be registered as a minimum requirement, those who excel beyond these simple requirements will advance farther than others and gain better positions at the top medical facilities. But how do RNs have the time to go back to school to…
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Proprietary Institutions a Viable Alternative for Nursing Students
By Alvina Lopez According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “employment of registered nurses is expected to grow by 22 percent from 2008 to 2018,” a figure that is largely at odds with the current number and capacity of nursing programs at traditional universities. A recent survey of 2010-2011 enrollment figures administered by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that “U.S. nursing schools turned away 67,563 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2010 due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints.” Interest in nursing today continues to grow among students, but traditional colleges are unable to accommodate…