Let's call Oprah

TsunamiKim · May 14, 2006

time to send a delegation of nurses directly to oprah’s headquarters

while dateline or 60 minutes might be persuaded to do a piece, in reality, it would probably be quite short, perhaps too short to accurately depict the quagmire into which overburdened nurses are sinking. i still think oprah is a good outlet for voicing our concerns and our best option to reach public notice. i know there are nurses who do not feel positive about oprah, but we need to look at things like her time slot, the volume of air time coverage her show could provide and her target audience with large numbers of women who are responsible for the health and safety of their families.

i think we need a nurse or, better still a small delegation of nurses, in chicago to make an appointment to talk directly to a decision maker at harpo.

who ever goes must be well prepared to demonstrate the volume of factual data that has already been written regarding the “nursing exodus” and how deliberate under-staffing for profit is harmfully impacting patient care. i refuse to call this “exodus” by any other name as it only buys into the healthcare industry’s shallow, profiteering excuses. the higher ranking these nurses, the more years of diverse and collective experience among this nurse delegation team the better. it is more likely for harpo executives to take a unified group of nurses seriously which is what we want. it will not hurt for them to think we are looking at other news programs, but flatter them with the impression that they are the fist and best choice. before going you will need to hold strategy meetings to insure that you present a strong, clear, concise and above all unified message; choose a main spokesperson carefully.

so, do we have a few dedicated chicago nurse volunteers?

my second message is write, write, and write some more………

“the pen is mightier than the sword”

i have just posted my petition on thepetitionsite.com go to:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/938995258

review my petition as an example of what we might be able to accomplish with a dedicated nursing petition.

i have talked about this for a many months and now it is out there. i am waiting on tender hooks for it to be visible on their home page, but it is still being checked out by their monitoring team. i must show patience with this process since after including so many links they now need to make sure that none of them leads to a dodgy website; at least i am guessing this is the hold up. what is important is that it is available to receive signatures and you can visit the site to sign by following the above link.

if you need to understand what has motivated me to post this petition and what i hope to accomplish you can visit my action alert share on the care2 sister site, go to: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/91853

i am pleased to report that nurses are not just signing, but they are making comments about the dangerous situation they are facing in healthcare. this commentary is very important and very powerful for several reasons. firstly the petitions on the site are highly visible in the public domain to a general audience of ordinary citizens who are all potential patients. while voicing your concerns among one another here is still important you are “preaching to the converted” as it were. we need the general public to know the real reasons why nurses are being driven out of nursing and how this exodus is making patient care unsafe with medical errors more prevalent.

secondly, if you sign the petition and leave a comment, you should take note of where those comments will eventually be delivered and how that can benefit our cause. one of the two target recipients of this petition is a highly respected doctor who is in a powerful position at the top of a well recognized organization called: the center for innovation in quality patient care. we need this organization to pay more attention to the real reasons for medical errors by addressing under-staffing and allowing nurses a safe avenue to report problems without fear of retaliation. if this is not addressed then all of their other tweaking of regulations regarding patient safety issues are completely redundant.

i have contacted this doctor several times, but my paperwork was always shuffled sideways to await the outcome of the hospital’s corrupt process of hr. perhaps his hands were tied by existing policy, but we need to tell him loud and clear that such policy is not working to protect nurses from retaliation and the policy itself needs to change. it is too late to correct the damage done to me now, however my case is merely one very bad example of how the system is seriously broken.

most of the nurses signing my petition have done so anonymously as this is possible on the site. this in itself makes a powerful statement to potential patients who read your comments; as one nurse reveals she has signed in this way because she is “frightened.” do not feel bad about signing anonymously, your concerns are valid. let the public know that we want to act as patient advocates, but are being bullied into silence: this is the very real and tragic message that must be addressed.

presenting a pattern of evidence to the center for innovation in quality patient care and other organizations showing that nurses are afraid to speak out as patient advocates will i hope force them to address the issue properly at last. this is a powerful organization and they can usher in industry wide changes, just keep sending them the evidence. in the links of my petition there are a large number of organizations you can contact regarding these issues to voice your concerns. the petition is intended to act as a resource for other healthcare activists. the more letters are sent to these organizations the better. there are also links to research papers and other useful data that can be presented to further the nursing cause.

my petition is just an example

i hope my petition will serve as an example to you of one way we could consider accomplishing our goal. i would like to see a new dedicated nursing petition created by the nurses who are voicing concerns here on this site. the petition could target oprah to do the feature on nursing issues that we have been discussing in this thread. this petition could be a collective effort with the best writer putting together the finished submission. this does need to be taken on by nurses currently working in us healthcare not a banished brit railing from across the pond!

so: which nurses are interested in submitting a new petition?

remember: “the pen is mightier than the sword”

last, but certainly not least, you can get your message out there by writing a "letter to the editor" at a newspaper or magazine.

letters to the editor get printed and statistics show they are one of the most widely read sections of the newspaper. you see a story about a bad patient outcome due to negligent hospital care: tell them why these situations happen. you see an article on a car crash after a nurse drove home exhausted and fell asleep at the wheel: tell them why these incidents happen. you read about a medication error that kills a patient: tell them why these mistakes are made. you see a article on a healthcare ceo promoted to a position with a big fat salary: tell the public what is draining the coffers of healthcare! you see another tale of woe over the “nursing crisis:” tell the public the real reason behind this exodus. tell it like it is: this is a “nursing exodus!”

just keep writing; remember: “the pen is mightier than the sword”

keep documenting and keep writing,

tsunami kim

ortess1971 · May 14, 2006

why don't we vent in a way americans would truly understand...let's go on Jerry Springer. I bet he would even do a good editorial at the end of the show, personally I would want to be one to keep my shirt on but maybe one of the new grads would help us out there but I bet I could throw a mean chair.

I like your idea-we could have nurses on one side and hospital administration on the other. I also throw a mean chair and have been known to pull hair when I have to....LOL

yellow finch, BSN, RN · May 17, 2006

Personally, I like Oprah most of the time. However, she's not going to "save" the nursing profession until she or someone close to her becomes ill and requires the services of a nurse in order to survive the experience. Otherwise, how could she understand our importance. Look at Michael J. Fox with his Parkinson's activism or the late Christopher Reeve who fought for the repair of spinal cord injuries. They probably wouldn't have had as much input had they not suffered themselves.

So I'm fairly certain that most people do not appreciate our work until they have a need for our skills. Oprah is no different.

tlcprn2u · May 18, 2006

a great letter to the editor addressing the issues we have been mentioning at this site, and written by a bedside registered nurse was published on saturday, may 13th in knoxville, tn! read it at the following website:

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/perspectives/article/0,1406,kns_2797_4695416,00.html

way to go, kay!!

TsunamiKim · May 18, 2006

a great letter to the editor addressing the issues we have been mentioning at this site, and written by a bedside registered nurse was published on saturday, may 13th in knoxville, tn! read it at the following website:
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/perspectives/article/0,1406,kns_2797_4695416,00.html
way to go, kay!!

great example of what i had advised other nurses to do in order to get the word out there. thank you for providing the link. i feel the need to repeat what i had put earlier......

remember: "the pen is mightier than the sword"

last, but certainly not least, you can get your message out there by writing a "letter to the editor" at a newspaper or magazine.

letters to the editor get printed and statistics show they are one of the most widely read sections of the newspaper. you see a story about a bad patient outcome due to negligent hospital care: tell them why these situations happen. you see an article on a car crash after a nurse drove home exhausted and fell asleep at the wheel: tell them why these incidents happen. you read about a medication error that kills a patient: tell them why these mistakes are made. you see a article on a healthcare ceo promoted to a position with a big fat salary: tell the public what is draining the coffers of healthcare! you see another tale of woe over the "nursing crisis:" tell the public the real reason behind this exodus. tell it like it is: this is a "nursing exodus!"

just keep writing; remember: "the pen is mightier than the sword"

keep documenting and keep writing,

tsunami kim

James Huffman · May 18, 2006

Letters to editors are great tools for getting information out to the public. And they're even easier than getting on Oprah ... : )

Here are some suggestions from my blog:

How to Incorporate Useful Information into Letters to Editors, and Have Customers Come Back for More

The trick with using letters to publicize your work is using a low-key approach to incorporate information into a letter, while keeping the letter relevant to an issue. This is not that complicated, if you remember one cardinal rule:

See yourself as providing information, and not selling your work.

In other words, write as though you had no interest in people buying your services. Write as though that was not even a factor at all. Simply write as if you were just providing helpful information, and the sales will come.

The difficulty is that hard-sell might have worked at some point. Maybe the ancient Egyptians were sold Pyramid condos by hard-sell methods. Maybe. But people won’t listen to hard-sell any more. Not now. Maybe not ever. I almost feel sorry for sales folks who have been trained to use hard sell stuff. Aside from their being annoying to deal with, nobody wants them to come near. And the harder their clueless bosses push them to hit people over the head, the more no one wants them near.

You’ve had experiences with this, I’m sure. People selling insurance, and you couldn’t pass them on the street without getting told about some great product they had. And I’m not picking on insurance salesmen: this kind of stuff happens with any field.

I have life insurance. And I bought it from a guy who never pushed me to buy. Instead, he would provide information when I asked for it. And that made me a customer for life. Because I don’t like to be hit over the head. No one does. And when someone writes a letter to the editor that’s a shameless puff piece for their product or service, my mind screams, “Next!” and I ignore it. Very likely, you do, too.

So let’s give an example. Let’s say you have a business selling baby-proofing services to new parents. And there’s an article in your local newspaper about how parents are worried about their children getting injured on home playground equipment.

Now you’ll think that this is just too perfect, that there will never be an issue brought up that’s so tailor-made to publicize your work. But there really are often situations like this. It’s just your job to provide information about the problem, and suggest solutions.

What you do want to do is provide helpful information, and just enough to interest the reader to check out more about your work. And it’s easy to do. Here’s an example of how I might handle such a case.

“Editor:

In today’s issue of the Daily News, readers spoke about being afraid that their children might be injured on home playground equipment. And while this is a real fear, there are solutions for such problems, ones that will allow children to play, enjoy themselves, and have a good time, as well as providing a safe playground setting for them.

In my work as a child safety consultant, I’ve found that often it’s as small a step as providing softer surfaces for playgrounds that will prevent many injuries. I’ve found that clients who change these surfaces experience some 37% fewer injuries than those without the softer surface. In addition, most surface changes cost less than $300 per playground. I’ve provided more safety hints on my web site at www. blah-blah-blah.com

Child safety is important for everyone. And it’s not hard to do, and by providing playground safety we protect our most valuable resource: our children’s future.

Yours truly,

Jane Doe”

Note several things. You didn’t give away the store. Nor should you. In other words, you provided information, but not enough that they can take the information, act on it, and not need your services. You also provide a web address where you will have more home safety information (you do have useful information like that on your web site, don’t you? I thought so). You also provide solid information (and while people like numbers and percentages, and you should use them, you should also know that I made those up entirely!)

Let’s say that your local newspaper allows you to have a letter once a month. In almost every business, there’s plenty of opportunities to tie-in stories with your work. What kind of favorable publicity do you think you’d get from a once-a-month letter in your local publication? And by providing such letters on a regular, systematic basis, you’ll find that readers will come to view you as an authority, respect what you have to say, and buy your services when they need them.