• Florence Nightingale, Feminist

    A guest post by Judith Lissauer Cromwell As Covid-19 continues to ravage the planet, The World Health Organization’s naming of 2020 as The Year of the Nurse to honor the two hundredth anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth is singularly apt. Most people have heard of Nightingale.  Not all know why.  Born (May 12, 1820) into wealth and privilege, brought up in the cream of English society, a precocious, mischievous child longed to be useful — to nurse the indigent sick.  “My daydreams were all of hospitals”; teen-aged Florence “visited them whenever I could.”[i]  But before satisfying her thirst for “a profession, a trade, a necessary occupation, something to fill &…

  • Nurses Don’t Learn it All in School

    From a new article at UltimateNurse.com… Most new nurses say that the things they wished they had learned in school include such things as the overwhelming amount of paperwork involved in admitting or discharging a patient, time management skills, how to prioritize and organize their days. The trouble is, most of this is simply just not possible given the structure of nursing programs. In some of the older diploma programs when nurses actually lived on the campus of hospitals and worked on the floors for whole shifts, they learned more about these things because they experienced them. Today, nursing students typically care for one or two patients and spend only…

  • Holidays for Nurses???

    I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day whether you are with the love of your life or not, I hope it was a good day. Being a Saturday, meant many of you had to work… Also hope you all emerged unscathed from Friday the 13th as well. We had a few major challenges in my family, but I think we’re on the road to recovery from them. Not looking forward to another one soon, but March always seems to mirror February and so we have another to face soon enough. And now it’s President’s Day here in the U.S. No mail, no banks are open, and many businesses are…

  • More About How to Become a Nurse

    The shortage of nurses will not diminish due to the current recession. In fact, career opportunities for nurses will continue to rise. For many who have been laid off or face layoffs in the near future, the prospect of becoming nurses is offering hope in an otherwise dismal economic future. This offers a shred of hope to the nursing workforce which is being challenged by growing shortages. Obstacles remain unchanged however. Nursing programs in most areas of the country are still impacted and long waiting lists will become longer. This does not have to be a barrier to hope for those looking for future stable employment opportunities nor to the…