In the latest episode of Nurse Jackie (played by Edie Falco in this Showtime series), Jackie is quintessential Jackie. In past shows, we saw Jackie acting as a medical Robin Hood, never hesitating to rob from the rich (those who bestow health insurance) to help the poor (those who don't have it or aren't served well by their health insurance). ...

Dean Hilda Alcindor, RN, of Haiti's FSIL School of Nursing offered words of hopefulness this morning in a communication to Marcia Lane, director of Haiti Nursing Foundation. She tells of help that has finally started to arrive in Leogane. It follows, in part: 9:53 am Hello all, FSIL is fulfilling its mission. Thank you to ...

Yesterday I blogged that Dean Hilda Alcindor, RN, of FSIL School of Nursing, the first BSN nursing program on the island of Haiti, was among the missing. Amidst the tragedy came good news: The dean is alive and well. She is, however, mourning the loss of one of her students. The bright nursing hopeful had left the safety of the school ...

Nursing’s ranking as the most trusted profession in America the past 8 years in Gallup’s annual Honesty & Ethics poll is testament to the reverence with which the public holds the caring profession. It’s a sentiment nurses return each day when they go to work. In fact, for some that sense of commitment to caring about and for ...

It just galls me that al Qaeda ''takes responsibility'' for the failed Christmas terror attempt at blowing up an airliner at the Detroit airport. Takes responsibility? I beg to differ. There's more to taking responsibility than admitting guilt. Taking responsibility does not mean gloating over a mere chance to incinerate hundreds of innocent ...

I was at the gym, doing the obligatory 40 minutes on an elliptical. I was willing to read anything I could get my hands on to help pass time and minimize the drudgery of pumping toward nowhere. To my great joy, wedged among the body-building magazines was an outdated issue of Marie Claire magazine. So with legs straining and heart thumping, I ...

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 ...

In the sixth episode, which marks the halfway point for Nurse Jackie's first season, the producers broach a heavy topic: Whether Jackie should help an old nursing friend die the way she wants to. The friend is Paula, and she was a nurse at All Saints Hospital for 15 years until she left a year ago with terminal lung cancer. When Paula stops ...

If you think the fictional Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe are bad for nursing’s image, just wait until you hear about one real-life nurse in California. Like many, I could not escape the media frenzy following Michael Jackson’s death. Internet, TV, newspapers, magazines and even my iPhone was giving me minute details of the singer’s final days, his ...

Most of us probably know by now that no less than three primetime shows are featuring nurses in primary roles.  After decades of St. Elsewhere, Quincy, House Calls and most recently ER and Grey's Anatomy; it's about time a healthcare drama was put forward with a nurse's point to view.  That should be reason enough for nurses to stand ...