It’s about time. A guilty plea by Dr. Rolando Arafiles in a West Texas courtroom last week closed a painful chapter in the long career of Texas nurses Anne Mitchell, RN, and Vicki Galle, BSN, RN. As part of a plea bargain, Arafiles admitted guilt to retaliation and misuse of official information, both felonies, for his part in targeting the nurses ...

''Hi. I'm Dr. Patti McCarver, and I'm your nurse.'' That's how an Oct. 1 New York Times article describes a nurse-patient interaction in a primary care setting. McCarver is a nurse practitioner who recently earned a doctorate. The trend of nurses earning doctor of nursing practice degrees has spawned a backlash from some physicians, who claim ...

Quality is the name of the game in healthcare, and nurses are consistently seen as playing a major role in improving hospital quality. As the demand and requirement from payers (both governmental and private) for high quality healthcare delivery grows, so will the pushback on nurses to find more and creative ways to up their game while cutting ...

I recently edited a compelling article on physician-assisted suicide (PAS) written by Lisa Siminski, BSN, RN, CHPN, staff nurse, St. Luke's Hospice House, Bethlehem, PA.   In her report on PAS, Siminski points out straight away that the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses ''clearly specifies that nurses ...

Whether or not you support President Obama's healthcare reform, whether or not you're a member of the ANA, nurses can agree on one thing: the healthcare bill was one big piece of legislation, and the ANA and nurses were involved in its creation.  Get involved. How many times have you heard those words? Probably many (too many?), but ...

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). ...

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 ...

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 ...

Episode three of HawthoRNe (confession: I skipped episode two) brought some meatier storylines than the pilot episode, but also a continuation of the silly stuff and stereotypes. A bright spot continues to be Jada Pinkett Smith's performance. Her Christina Hawthorne, CNO of the fictional Richmond Trinity Hospital, is committed. Cool. She has the ...