A big part of looking at evidence is numbers. Nurses need to question whether something can be considered evidence based on the sample size or if predicted outcomes are small or inconsistent.  As ...

I am a wife, a mother of two awesome kids, a daughter, a sister and a nurse.

I am also a survivor.

At the age of 43 a routine screening mammogram picked up an abnormality in my left breast that turned out to be invasive lobular carcinoma. I ...

Some people scoff at the younger generation's seeming dependence on social media. "Who needs text messaging or Facebook or MySpace? What's wrong with picking up the phone and calling someone?" ask some old-schoolers.

And they'll further the attack with, "Who cares what Ashton Kutcher has to say about his wife, Demi Moore? He can keep his tweets to himself!"

All true enough. But it was a lone ...

Last month was Breast Cancer Awareness month and I blogged about my experience with a false positive mammogram.  Ironically, this is now the center of a new debate: if women, with little to no risk of breast cancer, should have annual mammograms before age 50.

According to the U.S. Preventative Services Task force mammograms should ...

I have a confession: I love Facebook, a love some might call obsession. I created my profile for work, making it sound significant and worthy of my time. Look at me - I'm a Facebook administrator, I'm really cool. But, this whole social networking trend has gone far beyond my office walls, leaping into my personal life and running amuck.

Now I post photos direct from my Blackberry, peruse on my "friends'" ...

Dorothy had a rough passage, on the winds of a ferocious tornado, to get to her Technicolor land of Oz. I visited a destination similarly colorful last week -- coral-blushed Bermuda.  My voyage was a little easier -- Royal Caribbean Line's Grandeur ...

According to an MSNBC report, a14-year-old Virginia boy developed Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) within hours of receiving an H1N1 vaccine.

Jordan McFarland, a high school athlete from Alexandria, reportedly left Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children the evening of Nov. 10 in a wheelchair nearly a week after developing severe headaches, muscle spasms and weakness in his legs following a swine flu shot. ...

To be ...

What about when you conduct a mid-afternoon assessment on that cardiac patient? Plenty of observations come to mind as you do the examination, but do you share them with ...

Like all political propositions, healthcare reform has left nurses wondering what's in it for them. Why should they support a bill? What could it do to their roles?

The American ...

The American Nurses Association President Rebecca M. Patton, MSN, RN, CNOR, has written a letter to all ANA members, urging them to get vaccinated for seasonal influenza and the H1N1 virus. ANA ...

"I'm keeping my options open" is the line many nurses have recently been overheard saying. Many nurses do not feel secure in their current job. There is a sense of "jinxing" themselves by overtly commenting on their job security. Many experienced ...

A recent segment on CBS' 60 Minutes posed an interesting solution for how to pay for health reform: eliminate Medicare fraud.

My mother, despite her 92 years of age, maintains the mind of a brilliant, life-loving 30-year-old. Unfortunately, her physical self never sipped from the fountain of youth. Her sight has dimmed, her mobility is nil, and she's done battle with cancer, gall bladder disease, vertigo, hypertension, insomnia and muscular and joint pain as far back as I can remember.

Lately, however, something ...

Nursing takes on new "heights" for those who choose to practice the profession at sea. Imagine climbing into a basket lowered from a helicopter hovering over a ship in mid-ocean. Up and away, and you're in the copter. The basket is lowered again, this time to retrieve a sick passenger, now your patient, in dire need of a ship-to-air evacuation.

The scenario is not all that unusual, if you are a nurse at sea, ...

The weekend between the call for a repeat mammogram and the actual appointment passed quickly.  I stayed busy with family to keep my mind away from the unknown.  Being a person who compartmentalizes emotions, denying anxiety was easy to do.  So, it took my by surprise when my sister and friends rearranged their schedules to escort me to my appointment.  I told each of them that I could go alone.  ...

A friend called me the other day and read an H1N1 memo that had been distributed to the approximately 120 employees at her Southeastern Pennsylvania office. It read:

Workers are expected to be at their work stations. If you have been exposed to H1N1, that does not mean you are sick or should stay home. If you do feel you must report off sick, we have a right to require a note from a doctor's office ...

Know anyone -- maybe a patient or a family member -- who's taking an antidepressant to help with sleep, a relatively common off-label treatment prescribed by physicians for menopausal women? Or anyone who takes low-dose statin cholesterol-lowering drugs as a prophylactic measure against heart attack and stroke -- not to treat high cholesterol?

They could be hurting their changes of getting health insurance.

Insurance ...

My doctor informed me this summer I was of age to receive my baseline mammogram.  He paused for a moment in the hallway and glanced into my eyes.  "You've always had lumpy breasts, right?"

I nodded.  Before he closed my chart, I caught a glimpse of a circle he had drawn on an image of a breast.  I swallowed hard, but decided he would have told me if he thought something was wrong.

A ...

Last time we saw Laura Vlaadingerbroek, MSN, RN, she was serving as chief medical officer aboard Holland America Lines' luxurious ms Zaandam. All the while she was living -- and loving --the good life, while traveling to exotic ports-of-call.

Then she found something ...

Hey, inquiring minds want to know, especially when one is attached to a pair of legs happy for any help they can get! The lure of shoes capable of firming calf muscles, minimizing the derriere, tightening the tummy, strengthening the back, exciting circulation, improving posture and even burning calories was too ...