dzadzey

Welp...Nurses Week is, mercifully over. Nurses everywhere got cheap trinkets, mediocre food and cheap sentiment from hospital administration. Hospital administrators got lots of opportunities to lavish nurses with empty praise and mawkish sentiment. And they will chuckle quietly amongst themselves as, once again, nurses shrugged and kept on keeping on, and the administrator’s year end bonuses will reflect how cheaply they got off...once again...with Nurses Week. And not a word will they hear from nurses about the indignity that was inflicted on them...yet again. But. it doesn't have to this way. It's past time...especially after this last year...long past time, for nurses to demand the respect we deserve from hospital administration. We are professionals, dedicated to caring for those in our charge safely, effectively and compassionately. We are NOT interchangeable, replaceable parts in the machine that is healthcare in America. As I have noted before, however, too many nurses will simply soldier on, ignoring the indignations, great and small, heaped upon them by bean-counters and penny pinchers more intent on the bottom line than patient care...or those who care for them. But unless we take care of ourselves we will, in the end, not be able to safely, effectively and compassionately care for those in our charge.

Nor is my argument about "spending government money". It's about quality versus quantity. It's about the toll futility of care takes on us as nurses...on the patient's families. Being realistic about end of life issues and death is NOT something we, as a society, are very good at.

Medical futility and reality trump hope and prayer. Just because we can maintain the function of a human body until the patient's skin blisters and they have weeping wounds on every extremity doesn't mean we should.

Nursing theory is a guide...not writ in stone absolutes...a guide, to nursing practice. Nursing practice is wholly contextual, and nursing theory, nursing experience, life experience, and a whole host of other subjective personal experience contribute to how we provide nursing care in the context of caring for a given patient.

National Nurses Week - The one week of the year hospital administrators pretend to care about the well-being of nursing staff.

I took refuge in the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism back in the 90's and, like you, the philosophy of Buddhism speaks more strongly to me than the metaphysics of Buddhism, although it is still relevant. Having worked in ICU for 10 years, meditation has helped me deal with the stresses that occur on a daily basis. I also work closely with our chaplains and palliative care team in addressing goals of care, family issues and end of life issues for those patients of different faiths.

Had one family the other day crowded in a room after the patient passed, the room smelled like a wet ashtray even after is was cleaned.

"Sputum... of any kind. Especially have an aversion to trachs... ya know, when they cough and a glob will fly across the room. I just can't even. But along this same topic, does anyone find that their ability to handle blood/bodily fluids is getting worse, rather than getting better? This seems to be the case for me. Most things seemed not to bother me early on, but as my career gains length, I'm getting grossed out more." Hasn't bothered me for years. I do, however find it amusing that casual conversation among nurses eventually turns to poop... ;)"

Patients and families with an overweening sense of entitlement, treating nurses and our support staff as if we were wait staff at a Waffle House.

National Nurses United (National Nurses United) is a good place to start. They can provide you with the training and resources...online and out of sight of management...you need to begin organizing. As nurses, we either hang together or hospital administrators will cheerfully let us hang separately.

I have passed this sign countless times, and I finally just couldn't stand it anymore. It reminds me of a sign I saw posted in a yard in Norfolk, Virginia when I was stationed there years ago. It read "DOGS AND SAILORS NOT Allowed On Grass". But more to the point, it begs the question of just where the "Safe Haven" for nursing staff is. In our facility, due to extensive remodeling, we lost our employee cafeteria and dining room..no "Safe Haven" in the food court we now have. We take our meals in a small, cramped break room, with no real respite from the needs on the floor thanks to incessant Vocera calls...no "Safe Haven" there. Once we have guided a patient and family through the process and grief of their loved one dying, we get no respite...no "Safe Haven" there. So, where is our "Safe Haven"?

While inroads are being made in increasing the number of BSN prepared nurses at the bedside, the number will still fall far short of the recommendations in the 2010 IOM report on The Future of Nursing. Part of this lies in the still high numbers of ADN prepared nurses graduating each year. This latter course allows a quicker and less expensive entry into a job that can lift people into the middle class. The problem of attracting more students to BSN programs is multifaceted, but a couple of issues are glaringly obvious. First, getting your BSN is expensive and time consuming, especially if you're already trying to hold down a job and raise a family. Secondly employers, by and large, do not offer a wage differential for BSN nurses versus ADN nurses. This discrepancy is justified by the position that ADN and BSN nurses sit for the same NCLEX-RN exam. That exam, however, only test for those minimum competencies for providing safe patient care, and fails completely to address the research, collaborative, information systems and other skills BSN prepared nurses bring to the bedside. Until nursing, as a profession, demands a revision of this testing paradigm, employers can continue to get something for nothing.

"I believe that sooner or later nurses and all other workers in hospitals will organize themselves in unions to protect themselves against the injustices of low pay, overwork, overtime without pay, and other intolerable working conditions. Anyone who works in a hospital has as much right as any other worker to a decent standard of living. Hospitals have no more right than industry to offer substandard wages and expect that its employees will accept it gladly because they are being allowed to "serve humanity." This kind of outdated idea is depriving the United States of the nurses it needs." Pauline Higgins, RN, AJN, January, 1955 Written 59 years ago, the truly sad thing is that nothing...has...changed.

A nurse who I worked with on our unit for several years accepted a position as clinical nurse manager. I said, " I would congratulate you, but admin will throw you under the bus at the drop of a hat". About six months later, our entire unit management was sacked, including the aforementioned CNM. Middle management in nursing is like walking on a tightrope over a pool of hungry sharks with someone at both ends working to cut the rope. Do yourselves a huge favor and just don't do it, no matter how sweet the deal.

We attended our grand-niece's "white-coat" ceremony at OU School of Osteopathic Medicine several years back. It was a wonderful event, with all of these young people being welcomed into the medical profession with open arms. Contrast that with my first day of nursing school in 1997..."Look around you. Half of you will be gone by the end of the program." These words were the first spoken by the faculty member addressing an auditorium full of nursing students in the first minutes of our fist day of nursing school. If nursing is going to continue to progress as a profession, we have to stop eating our own and start demanding the same level of respect afforded our colleagues in the medical profession.