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 ...

Most women have an extra appendage that is as natural to them as an arm or leg - their purse. And while there is such a phenomenon as a man-purse (or man-bag), women generally have a closer bond to this must-have handbag. We change it with the seasons, with the type of activity (formal versus grocery-store shopping) and with our mood (red for daring, black for dark and mysterious). For women, a purse marks their identity; ...

The September 30th episode of the NBC show Mercy was centered on patient advocacy.  Each of the three main characters had to advocate for their patients in a rather dramatic way.  Yes, it was dramatic because it was television, but it left me wondering how far "real life" nurses have gone to advocate for their patients.  Nurses say they are patient advocates, but what does that really mean in the daily ...

At some point in our lives we'll all want a personal patient safety advocate to stand up for us when we're not receiving the care we need. As nurses, this job often falls in your lap. In fact, you're mandated by your boards of nursing to report substandard care. Simply put, it's your job to protect the patient; even when he needs protection from the physician.

Anne Mitchell, RN, and Vicki Galle, RN, have ...

If you live on the East coast and would like to meet Joe Niemczura, MS, RN, known affectionately on this blog as "Joe the Nurse," the time is almost at hand. This affable nursing instructor at the University of Hawaii - Manoa/Nepal nursing instructor/author will greet the public, present a slide show on his Nepal adventures, display various props and offer readings ...

On the day my daughter Ava was born, my journey as a parent of a child with special needs began, as did my insight into such an excursion. Early on, I had accepted her diagnosis of spina bifida, but knew nothing of the realities. It certainly is not something anyone can be prepared for, and it often takes struggle after struggle to accept such fate, if you ever really do. I often yearn to give her abilities that fall ...

Just when you thought nurses were under-represented on TV, we now have no fewer than three primetime series about the lives of nurses. Since the "nursing shortage" in primetime has all but been eliminated, the question now is: Which series most accurately depicts the "real" lives of nurses? Keep in mind that all TV is "heightened reality." No one wants to tune in and see what literally happens in the course ...

"I spent 15 years of my career doing critical care," said Joe Niemczura, MSN, RN. "Sure, I can run hemodynamic monitoring ... But, if you have a high-tech background in nursing, just throw that out the window. In Nepal, they don't have hemodynamic monitoring, they don't have PIC lines. They don't do TPM. They're new at giving insulin because they have trouble with refrigeration. The amount of  technology an American ...