Nursing is a profession that has been serving our communities for years. It is a career where individuals dedicate a lifetime to caring for neighbors and strangers.  It is not a 25-years-of-service-and-out type of job.  It is not a 9-to-5 type of job.  It is a demanding but rewarding job. If you are one of the many nurses who ...

A nice article about nurse practitioners showed up in the New York City edition of yesterday's New York Times. Although titled ''Yes, the P.A. Will See You Now,'' the article looks at both physician assistant and NP roles, and it does a good job covering education, salary and job experience. The reporter does once refer to NPs and PAs as ...

After being exposed to it for a while you begin to think ''medical English'' is your actual language, whereby everything you learned in school becomes a second language that you have to use with patients. This really gives ''English as a second language'' new meaning. I recently saw a license plate that read ''HCT436,'' and immediately saw it as ...

I once saw an ad on TV showing a postoperative patient returning from surgery and being told ''the surgery went well, but you have cancer'' by her physician, who promptly leaves the patient in the hallway.  As nurses, part of your job will be to dispel any misconceptions patients are left with after their encounters with their physicians. ...

Angie's List has plans to let consumers rate their health care providers. The 12-year-old Indianapolis-based company maintains lists of consumer ratings for all kinds of local businesses and services. According to a company press release, the 600,000 list members have been asking for years to add health care providers, hospitals and insurers to ...

I was in a car wreck two weeks ago-hit broadside in the rear passenger door where two of my girls were sitting.  The policeman insisted an EMT check out my girls then shared, ''The lady in the other car wants the paramedic to look at her ankle.  It's really swollen, but I don't know that it has anything to do with this ...

  Opening my Providence (Rhode Island) Journal this morning (OK, online), I saw yet another report on physician objections to retail or convenient care clinics. The same article, but with different names, has been showing up about once a week somewhere in the country for the past 3 years. The article always cites physician charges that ...