''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 ...

Doyle Byrnes, a 22-year-old nursing student at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS,  is suing the school in federal court for dismissing her from its registered nursing program in response to a photo she posted on her Facebook page showing her posing with a human placenta in a lab class, according to a ...

In 1976, more than 120,000 female registered nurses signed on to the first Nurses' Health Study to volunteer information that would be used to assess risk factors for cancer and heart disease in older women. In 1980, questions were added looking at diet and other factors. The aim was to look at risk factors for major chronic diseases in women and ...

It's back to school time again. You can bet of all the back-to-school reports in newspapers, local TV or radio, you won't hear one on school nurses. And I want to know why? With nurse-to-patient/student ratios of 1-to-1,000 in some communities, why isn't the school nurse the hero we all want to thank? Fifty years ago, the job of a school nurse ...

Sometimes the right thing to do feels counterintuitive. When your car hits an icy patch and begins to spin, you automatically want to hit the brakes and steer away from the direction the car is sliding. That instinct is exactly opposite what experts recommend: Tap the brakes and steer into the slide to maintain control. The Tri-Council for ...

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 ...

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 ...

Greetings from the 37th annual National Black Nurses Association conference! There was certain energy among the attendees on Tuesday, which was enhanced by the sea of red everyone was wearing as part of the ''Go Red, Girlfriend'' campaign by the American Heart Association. Lots of talk today about global health concerns. One of the most ...

I saw an item from the Mason County News, Mason County, Texas. It offered snakebite tips to readers who probably have seen more than their fair share of rattlers, water moccasins and copperheads. But what caught my eye was the fact that the tip sheet was penned by a trauma nurse, Cindy Loeffler, RN, working at Hill Country Memorial Hospital, ...

Posted April 30, 2009 The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) issued a joint statement April 30 about the then 109 confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S., and offered recommendations to the public about when to seek emergency care in the 11 states where the disease is present ...