One of this summer’s hottest concert series is by two 80’s boy bands. Yes, The New Kids on the Block (NKTOB) and the Backstreet Boys (BSB) are hitting the road and selling out places like Chicago. Now, if these guys can come back with a vengeance, then so can anyone out there who is feeling like their career is in the ...

This one always humors me. Do I get angry because someone called me a ‘male nurse’? Some of the other versions of this story are when patients ask me, “How long have you been a male nurse?”, or “How bad is it being a male nurse?”. It honestly has everything to do with the tone of their voice when asking the ...

You spend countless hours taking odd shifts every week, so you can assume that that nature will call at least once during your day (or night) shift. Besides your patients' hospital rooms, the bathroom is where you might spend the most time during the workday. You deal with a lot of unsanitary situations as a nurse. Why take that to the ...

As the fields of nursing and medicine become more demanding, the number of medical and nursing malpractice lawsuits are on the rise. As a result, the need for nurse experts to help with these lawsuits is becoming equally more demanding. In many states, medical malpractice cases require the use of expert witnesses. This includes nurse experts. Often called legal nurse consultants, ...

Those who say “quitters never win” are fooling themselves. If you stick something out just because you’re afraid of giving up—and it’s something that no longer serves you—you’re wasting your time. And ultimately, you lose. Sure, you’re not a quitter. But you sure as hell aren’t winning either. When it comes to work, quitting is sometimes the best move you can ...

An EMT instructed to transport a woman to an abortion clinic declines, citing personal beliefs. A nurse ordered to administer a large dose of morphine to a terminal cancer patient in pain refuses, saying the medication could hasten death. A physician turns away a gay patient, apparently on the basis of his sexual orientation. Are these scenarios examples of healthcare workers ...

Want to see a bunch of people get up in arms? Recommend a new vaccination. While vaccines were once accepted as a medical miracle (no more polio!), today's parents closely examine the risk/benefit ratio of any and all recommended vaccinations. And who can blame them? With a ton of scary stories linking vaccinations with autism (never mind the fact that numerous ...

It seems that your preceptee hasn’t quite mastered the art of time management and, well, efficiency. You have three patients assigned to you and it’s 10 a.m. and your preceptee has yet to even see the third. Come 6 p.m., there are two patients whose charts have been empty since 12 hours prior, and you have to wait around an hour ...

My apologies to James Carville. I plagiarized his tagline because the insurance industry has forgotten about sick people during our national healthcare debate. I remember when nurses and insurance companies use to get along with each other. Back in the 1960s, these nurses even took time out of their busy schedules to pose for one of their ads. We took care ...

As much as we may like nursing and the fun parts of our jobs, like talking to patients and getting to do procedures (yes, this is fun for us students!), there are the parts that make us feel sort of like the “Dirty Jobs” guy. Cleaning up after our patient’s is definitely low on my list of “why I love nursing,” ...

Healthcare workers who volunteer for American Red Cross disaster-relief assignments say they're motivated by a desire to help people put their lives back together after a catastrophe. These 8,000 volunteers -- typically nurses, social workers, emergency medical technicians, counselors, physician assistants and therapists -- often leave home on short notice to aid victims of hurricanes, fires, floods and other disasters, wherever ...

We had a BIG lapse in communication on the floor recently. A vital patient assessment was communicated incorrectly and the effect was scary. As usual, the lapse was not just one person’s fault, and the whole unit was upset. Ever played Gossip? It’s a game where a “secret” is whispered into the ear of one person, then that person whispers the ...

Few things are more frustrating than working with a charge nurse who just doesn’t get it. But before you blow up, take a deep breath. Then ask yourself: What exactly is the problem? Are you frustrated because your charge nurse asks you to do one thing, then complains because you haven’t done something else? Do they refuse to help out on ...

What kind of nerdy nurse would I be if I wasn’t an advocate of Electronic Medical Records (EMR)? Not worthy of my title, at the very least. As a nerd, I am pretty much required to preach the glories of my geeky infatuations. Not only to justify my obsessions, but also to promote more growth and innovation in the tech world. ...

As a nurse we have hundreds, if not thousands of things to do and remember each and every day. We have become masters of multitasking, or so we think. Is it any wonder that we make mistakes? The biggest part is trying to minimize the damage of those mistakes, take responsibility for our mistakes and learn from those mistakes so we ...

My clinical experience has been very eye-opening. I feel like I have learned so much about how a hospital functions, and yet know I have so much more to learn. To be embraced and invited into the executive meetings and to see the processes that occur to make change withing the organization with patient care as the the bottom line has ...

You’d think it would be easy. At lunchtime you get hungry, so you grab some food from the hospital cafeteria and go on with your shift. However, lunch at the hospital is rarely that simple. What you eat, where you eat and whom you eat with are all things your coworkers are paying attention to. This doesn’t mean every lunch has ...

Teresa Brown, R.N. wrote an article, featured in The New York Times, recently called, Caring for the Chart of the Patient, in which she discusses the very real challenge we face as nurses to document our care. She speaks about the mandates, and standards that we are forced to document on in order to satisfy one agency, insurance company, regulation, or ...

It’s hard enough to come up with the right words to sell yourself in a resume or cover letter, without the English language tripping you up. One little mistake in spelling or grammar can ruin an entire resume or cover letter. It’s not easy to remember all the rules of the English language. So here’s a little cheat-sheet to help you ...

Nursing today is definitely a highly skilled, high-tech profession. Smartphones, tablet computers, and a variety of easily accessible apps bring the world of technology to our fingertips, increasing the amount of information we can access and share in a very short time. But the so-called "little things" – listening to patients, touching them, spending time with family – still make a ...