I have one of the best nursing careers in the world right now: I get to work from home with incredibly smart people, and my opinion is valued because I am a nurse. What do I do? I am an Informatics Nurse. I became an Informatics Nurse just over 10 years ago, at a time when this field was fairly new and few nurses had even heard of it. This past year the pandemic put new focus on health technology as telehealth, virus tracking, and health data exchanges took off. Now I am getting lots of questions from nurses curious about what Nursing Informatics is and what I do each…
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Fire Department Coffee is Delicious
I recently received some terrific coffee to review. I got two bean samples, the Original Medium Roast coffee and the Vanilla Bean Bourbon infused coffee from the Fire Department Coffee Company. This company was founded and owned by a Veteran turned firefighter and is run by firefighters. In fact they give back by donating 10% of the proceeds to their Foundation to help support first responders who have been injured (physically or mentally) or are facing serious health challenges. The samples of Fire Department Coffee that I received were seriously some of the best coffee I’ve had. Both have a wonderful aroma and deliver a very smooth experience without bitter…
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Nurses Share COVID-19 Experiences
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Try the Beanie Sleeper
I was offered a Beanie Sleeper to try out and as I’m sure you all understand, life has been hectic and stressful. I was somewhat reluctant to try it because I get HOT when I sleep and it wakes me up! Anything on my head holds in my body heat and makes me hot faster. But when I finally did try it out, this is NOT the case. In fact, I was quite comfortable. Yes, it smashed my hair down on my head and I thought that would annoy me to death too, but it didn’t and when I awoke I was able to adjust my hair just fine. My…
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Changing focus from withdrawal of care to comfort care
With so much death and debility caused by the Coronavirus COVID-19 over the past 9-12 months the terms “withdrawing care” or “withdrawal of care” have become notorious in health care. They’re such harsh terms for such a sacred path. The end of life should be calm and comfortable and peaceful and not feel like a dark and suddenly hopeless change of focus. Death is not an uncommon factor with COVID-19. Over 356,000 deaths have occurred in the US alone, and the staggering rate of new cases has reached over 200,000 every day in the last weeks of December and continues to rise in 2021. Nurse burnout is skyrocketing with escalating…