VivaLasViejas ASN, RN

LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych

Once a nurse, always a nurse!

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide

The Best Is Yet To Be

What are the challenges in Long Term Care?
Geriatric

LTC 101: What To Expect

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Here is a brief guide for new LTC nurses as to what they can expect from their jobs. Included are the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of working in this...

28 replies 28,087 views
What can you do to make a facility survey go smoothly?
Geriatric

"State's Here!": Demystifying the Long-Term Care Survey

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Everybody dreads it: that morning when a group of official-looking people walks into their facility and announces the beginning of the annual survey. Here are a...

28 replies 35,882 views
What are the things you love about nursing?
Rock

The Top 10 Things I Loved About Nursing

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

As a late-middle-aged RN who is newly retired from clinical nursing, I'd like to share a retrospective on a long and fruitful career that brought me a fair...

42 replies 48,841 views
When and How did you decide to leave nursing?
Retired

Hanging It Up

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Here are some thoughts on what goes into the decision to leave nursing and go in a completely different direction late in life: the hopes, the dreams, the...

55 replies 29,775 views
How can a nurse with mental illness achieve wellness?
Disabilities

Calling In Sick: Dealing With Mental Illness At Work, Part 3

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

The series continues with a look at some of the ways nurses with mental health challenges can help themselves to achieve and maintain wellness. We also discuss...

26 replies 10,925 views
How does depression and other mental health conditions affect nurses in the workplace?
Disabilities

Calling In Sick: Dealing With Mental Illness At Work, Part 1

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Inspired by discussions with allnurses members and others, this is the first in a brief series of articles about how anxiety, depression and other mental health...

56 replies 32,698 views
What is it like to work weekends in a nursing facility?
General Nursing

Hearts and Entertainment | Life of a Nurse

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Here's a story about a wild-and-crazy Saturday in a skilled nursing facility when staff and patients alike combine to keep each other off-balanced, confused,...

10 replies 8,291 views
How is it like to live with bipolar disorder?
Disabilities

I Hate Being Bipolar. It's AWESOME!

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Once known as manic depression, bipolar disorder is a serious but treatable mental illness that's become better known in recent years, thanks to the creative...

43 replies 21,102 views
When is mental health awareness month?
Disabilities

Mental Health Awareness Month

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

As relatively few outside the mental health community know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. During the next few weeks, I hope AN members will join me in...

30 replies 12,963 views
Should I continue looking for work?
General Nursing

After Nursing: Is There Life Out There?

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Some musings from a nurse in her mid-fifties who learns that she faces the possibility of losing the best nursing job she's ever held.......and ponders the...

45 replies 23,312 views
Geriatric

A Place for Mom: Staffing Concepts and the Role of the Nurse in As…

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Second of a multi-part series on assisted living facilities and how they serve the elderly who are too frail to live at home safely, yet not ill enough for...

8 replies 6,426 views
What are your nursing FAILS?
Humor

Epic (Nursing) FAILS!

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Like any good team member, nurses come to work with our game face on: ready to run hard, field phone calls, intercept doctors, and run interference for our...

133 replies 167,231 views
Stress 101

Ten Ways To Know You're Burning Out

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Here's a primer on how to recognize nursing burnout......BEFORE it destroys your career and lands you in the booby hatch.

85 replies 227,636 views
General Nursing

20 Things Nurses Wish They Never Had to Say

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

OK, I'll have to admit that I got the idea for this piece from a desk calendar my sister gave me for Christmas last year. It's 365 pages of nursing funnies,...

33 replies 105,074 views
Geriatric

Whee! The People

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

An "other-side-of-the-desk" look at what nurse managers REALLY do all day. Hint: it's *not* sitting in our offices filing our nails and checking out the latest...

4 replies 3,609 views
Does your workplace uses an alphabet soup of acronyms?
Geriatric

You've Gotta Know the Lingo

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

Alphabet Soup: We speak the same language.

22 replies 19,854 views
Did I ever mention how much I loathe Friday nights in LTC?
General Nursing

Smart Nurse vs. Dumb Pharmacy, Round One. DING! | Life of a Nurse

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

In the midst of a Friday swing shift (otherwise known in the hospital industry as "Boot 'Em Out to the Nursing Homes Day"), a lone nurse responsible for 42...

48 replies 20,061 views
General Nursing

What I Know About: The PITA Patient

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

This is the first in what will be an occasional series, loosely based on the AARP Magazine's monthly column "What I Know About (blank)". Intended mainly for...

17 replies 20,545 views
Have you ever had a Halloween costume malfunction?
General Nursing

A Wardrobe Malfunction, or Why Not to Wear A Halloween Costume to …

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent individual, but every now and again I have to re-learn a lesson that should've sunk in at least the second or third...

30 replies 25,011 views
General Nursing

Ten Things A Nurse Doesn't Want to Hear

by VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN

We've all heard them.............those hackneyed phrases and dopey questions people often direct at nurses because they truly do not understand what we do.

74 replies 383,617 views