kchilla

I am a nursing student in Leadership class. My group has to write a persuasive paper topic "mandated nurse-patient ratio." I live in California, where we have mandated nurse-patient ratio. On the surface, we think the ratio is a good idea, but our professor does not agree with us. After some research, we learned some set backs about the mandated ratio. We are also required to interview nurses. The problem is that we mostly got a positive response about the ratio, and we are supposed to be writing a paper against it. Many people we interviewed said that it is important to have it mandated. We need more opinion on this. Do you suggest other method of ensuring reasonable patient loads if it is not mandated? We propose our thesis that it should not be mandated (it can serve as a guideline but should not be mandated). All input is appreciated! By sharing your opinion, the input will be used for our paper, kind of like an informal interview. Thank you!

Holistic nursing is something I would love to do. I have researched for it awhile back but don't have a lot of info. Right now my second choice would be Nursing patient educator but ultimately, holistic is my niche no doubt about it. I also have Maternity-child (hope to work in a natural birthing center, not too much meds) or Nurse Informatics in mind because I am a computer person. At least I won't have to be pushing meds on patients, but I will lose the chacne to educate patients. But that's if I cannot find holistic nursing/nurse patient educator.

I agree with every single word you posted. I feel absolutely the same way. I am currently a nursing student. I, too, got into nursing knowing that many lessons that will be taught in school will go against my belief in patient care. I do not like to encourage western medicine if it is not necessary. I don't mind med-surg but optimally I rather not be the one who just push meds on patients. I believe in healthy lifestyle. I also feel lost while I am in Nursing school. Some days I feel okay about myself. Some days I feel like I have chosen the wrong path and I don't belong. Thank you for posting this as I can relate to you and take information from the replies. I am glad that there are people out there who has the same belief :)

Hello, I am in my second year into my BSN RN program. I never heard of this specialty until my professor from the first semester suggested it after she saw my Power point presentation that I formatted it to be like a Jeopardy game show and was impressed with it. Anyway, I have always been a computer person, but not as much as I used to be anymore since school kept me busy. I think I have a raw talent in graphic design more so than any other computer specialty, but I was in the computer science major (more opportunity than graphic design) but then I found out that I enjoy healthcare better. However, I do not want to lose the computer side of me and hope I incorporate two things that I enjoy doing together. There is not that much information in Informatics and I do not know what to expect. I really don't like analyzing a bunch of numbers and statistics. What I hope to do in Nursing informatics is that to help develop a software to make it user friendly and improve workflow so we can better care for our patients. If Nursing informatics is not for me, I actually have one strong passion that only pertains to healthcare, which is health promotion. I would love to have a position as patient educator. but this will be posted in a different forum. Thought I just put it out there. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.