Do Male Nurses Face Reverse Sexism?
A recent blog entry at the Boston Globe asks: "Should you let a male nurse deliver your baby?" No wonder men still aren't joining the profession in droves.
‘Hawthorne’ versus ‘Nurse Jackie’?
We've already posted about Showtime's controversial new drama, Nurse Jackie. When it rains it pours: Hawthorne, TNT's new series starring Jada Pinkett Smith as a chief nursing officer, starts tonight. Is there anything to be gained from comparing the nurse characters in the two shows, or do they exist in parallel TV universes that could never collide?
Nurse Jackie Revisited: Do the Cringes Outweigh the Moments of Recognition?
I get that this is a TV show and designed for entertainment and that Nurse Jackie is a fictional character. And I’ve worked with nurses who have some of Jackie’s problems, though not all rolled up into one person. But I still find myself wondering if the writers thought that in order to make nurses’ work interesting to others they had to add such extreme behaviors. Aren’t nurses’ stories compelling on their own?
Business as Usual from the AMA in Opposing Health Care Reform
In keeping with its long history of successfully opposing health care reform, the American Medical Association (AMA) is, surprise, doing it again. And here's a recent AJN editorial on some nurse-led solutions to improving care and reducing costs that should be part of any reform plan: "nurses can help to build the infrastructure we’ll need if we’re to shift from an emphasis on acute care to one on health promotion, chronic care management, and primary care . . . . "
H1N1 Virus (Swine Flu) Update: Nurse Catches It from Patient; WHO To Upgrade to Phase 6 Pandemic
Nursing Times reports today that a nurse in Scotland has contracted the H1N1 virus from a patient. As the World Health Organization (WHO) meets this morning to almost certainly upgrade the virus to a phase 6 pandemic—perhaps reflecting not so much its severity thus far as its rapid spread around the globe—here's a useful table succinctly describing the phases of a pandemic.