Archive for March, 2009
Take the Poll: Nursing and the Economy
March 18, 2009Head Nurse! AJN’s Editorial Director Goes Back to Bellevue
March 16, 2009I worked in Bellevue Hospital’s emergency department in NYC back in the 1970s. It’s where I “cut my teeth” in nursing and it has always been a source of pride. Bellevue ED nurses were considered to be top-notch, able to handle any situation that came through the door. We stood our ground with overbearing physicians and administrators; Lori Chiarelli, my Head Nurse, set a high bar. I visited there last week and met with Marion Machado, the Head Nurse of the Emergency Ward (EW). (I like that they still use the Head Nurse title—there’s no doubt as to who is in charge.)
Marion Machado, Head Nurse, Bellevue Emergency Ward
Machado is a no-nonsense, roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done kind of person with a quick smile and sarcastic wit (a perfect ED nurse). She was wearing blue scrubs and a stethoscope around her neck; we sat at the work station in the middle of the EW, a large room with 10 beds around the perimeter. As we talked, her eyes moved constantly, scanning monitors and people and occasionally shouting instructions to staff. She returned to the conversation at hand without missing a beat. Read the rest of this entry ?
State Boards of Nursing: Can They Protect the Public from Unsafe Nurses? An Audio Interview with Dr. Maryann Alexander, RN
March 13, 2009alexander0491 (Diana Mason Interviews Maryann Alexander)
The March 2009 issue of AJN includes a study by Dr. Elizabeth Zhong and her colleagues at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). This study of nurses who were put on probation for professional misconduct by six state boards of nursing found that nurses with a history of a criminal conviction were more than four times more likely to recidivate than nurses without such a history. The obvious conclusion: state boards need to do background checks on nurses applying for licensure or license renewal. Read the rest of this entry ?
At the IOM Integrative Medicine Conference: Nursing Crucial to Model of Care
March 10, 2009
On February 25-27, 2009, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convened the “Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public” in Washington, DC, to advance the science, understanding, and progress of integrative medicine (“health care that addresses together the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of the healing process”).
I’ll cut right to the chase—I have a problem with the term “integrative medicine,” and I’m glad to report that I wasn’t alone. On day one a number of the 650 diverse practitioners chimed in about the lack of inclusiveness in that terminology. Dr. Beverly Malone, the CEO of the National League for Nursing, voiced a strong statement that the term was not inclusive and requested that “integrative health care” be used instead. She reminded everyone of the historically critical role nursing and other health care professionals have played in the development of this model of care. By the end of the meeting the consensus was that the field should be called integrative health—not CAM, not integrative medicine. We’ll see. Read the rest of this entry ?
President Obama: Where Are the Nurses?
March 5, 2009I was delighted to see President Obama nominate nurse Mary Wakefield to head up the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) (see my posting about this on February 20th at www.disruptivewomen.net). I was expecting him to understand the value of having the nursing perspective represented in meetings focused on health care reform. So I am quite disappointed to be told by colleagues that there will only be a token nurse at today’s Health Care Reform Summit. Lots of physicians and insurers are there, but only the president of the American Nurses Association will represent nursing. (While I expect that Wakefield will be there, she will not be there to represent nursing.) My message to the president and those he has charged to lead health care reform: You can’t reform health care without nurses. And nurses have a lot of solutions to our ailing health care system. For examples of these solutions, look at the American Academy of Nursing’s Raise the Voice Campaign.
–Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, Editor-in-Chief
Be a Nurse. Be a Writer. Don’t Be a ‘Nurse Writer.’
March 4, 2009I adore nurses. If I thought I could handle the math (or another round of schooling), I might become a nurse. I respect the profession and understand that 95% of the hands-on care provided by our health care system is provided by nurses, not physicians.
That said (and I know this is going to irritate a lot of people), I think that the nurse who describes her- or himself as a “nurse writer” (or a nurse poet, nurse researcher, nurse attorney, and so on) is doing a disservice to both the writer and the profession. To me (and not to some of my colleagues here who are nurses, I hasten to add), adding “nurse” before “writer” is a bit of a cop-out. Read the rest of this entry ?
Obama’s Reversal of Conscience Rule
March 3, 2009
Last Friday, the Obama administration took a first step to reverse one of the most disconcerting policy changes made by the Bush administration during its 11th hour on a topic that I’m sure will be controversial among nurses, as it has been in society—the so-called “conscience rule.” There is a 30-day public comment period before the rule can be rescinded. Read the rest of this entry ?
