Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, Author at Off the Charts

Who Will Watch the Watchers? Consider Nurses

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

Sometimes my surgical mask feels like a gag/by Julianna Paradisi

Does anyone else find it ironic that, while the National Security Agency (NSA) is seeking to extradite and prosecute the contractor who revealed the agency’s alleged widespread spying on ordinary Americans and visitors from other countries, nurses can get fired for far more local breaches of privacy?

When the government gives 500,000 private contractors access to data hoards compiled from the electronic and phone conversations of U.S. citizens, is HIPAA still relevant?

Two years ago, the nurse blogosphere raged over the expulsion of three nursing students for posting the photo of a placenta on Facebook. Today, in light of the NSA’s potentially far-reaching privacy violations, the decidedly insensitive exploits of those students seem a bit less newsworthy.

More famously, the ordeal of Vickilyn Galle and Anne Mitchell, nurses who were fired after they blew the whistle on medical malpractice while exposing a conflict of interest affecting patient safety within the hospital, illustrates the high accountability placed upon nurses to protect patient privacy. […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2016-11-21T13:06:59-05:00July 17th, 2013|Ethics, Nursing, Patients|2 Comments

The Best Nurses Day Gift: Enough Time With Patients

What’s Left Behind, oil, graphite, and mixed media on wood panel. 18″ by 18.” Copyright J. Paradisi.

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

I can’t remember which handle on Twitter asked nurses last week for their stories about the best or worst Nurses Day gifts from their employers, so I will tell mine here. It began badly, but became the best.

Nurses Day in May is a cute little rhyme. In Oregon, where I live, May also brings hay fever allergy, which is neither cute nor rhymes, but like Nurses Day, is an annual event.

I woke up on the morning of Nurses Day with a headache and my voice hoarse from allergy. Previously, I had traded shifts to work this day in place of another nurse with an acutely hospitalized family member. If she and I were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, her need was scissors to my paper.

Calling in sick was not an option. It’s part of the unwritten Nurse’s Code, which is really more of a guideline, but don’t test it. Calling in sick after agreeing to work for a coworker will not garner sympathy from your unit.

When I arrived for work, another nurse remarked that my hoarse voice sounded sexy, like actress Kathleen Turner’s. Despite my crankiness from inadequate respiratory gas […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2016-11-21T13:07:32-05:00May 22nd, 2013|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient experience, Patients|2 Comments

Birdcages: An Oncology Nurse on Crucial Information Patients Need About Dying

Julianna Paradisi, who blogs at JParadisi RN and elsewhere, works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology. Her art has appeared several times in AJN, and her essay, “The Wisdom of Nursery Rhymes,” was published in the February 2011 issue.

I grew up in a family in which occasional conversations about death occurred at the dinner table. My father openly discussed his own. As a child, this terrified me, but he would say, “It’s a terrible subject, but everyone dies someday.”

by Julianna Paradisi

I don’t remember how old I was when my father made me promise he’d be cremated and his ashes spread over the ocean upon his death. It feels like I always knew, and this knowledge comforted me when, a few years ago, my siblings and I spread his ashes from a boat over the Pacific Ocean where he used to fish.

Paradoxically, in other contexts my father struggled when it came to telling me about death. Starting when I was around three years old, in the springtime, he would sometimes bring home baby birds that fallen from their nests. He kept an old birdcage for this purpose. He let me name the birds, and I called each of them Jimmy. He taught me to mix small pieces of bread with watered-down milk, and then feed it bit by bit into their disproportionately large mouths with an eyedropper.

This ritual usually lasted two days. On the third morning, […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2018-03-28T10:34:25-04:00April 10th, 2013|nursing perspective|6 Comments

The Real Reason Why Older Nurses Don’t Retire

Snow Tops/ by Julianna Paradisi

Julianna Paradisi, who blogs at JParadisi RN and elsewhere, works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology. Her artwork has appeared several times in AJN, and her essay, “The Wisdom of Nursery Rhymes,” was published in the February 2011 issue.

I hate to break this news to new graduate nurses struggling to find jobs, but the real reason that older nurses don’t retire isn’t—as you may have been led to believe—the struggling economy. The reason is that a large percentage of retirement-aged nurses enjoy working. As a middle-generation nurse, I’m coming to grips with this reality myself.

Many of my longtime colleagues are old enough to retire. When they do, they often retain on-call status. They never really go away. It’s weird to attend a retirement party for a coworker and then see her or him again the next day at work, helping out with a special project for their manager.

This trend among older nurses was also in evidence at a meeting I recently attended. Most of those present were nurse managers. Although a few were younger than me, most were older, sporting hipster eyeglass frames and sophisticated bob haircuts that left their natural silver.

These men and women […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2017-01-26T12:35:09-05:00March 25th, 2013|career, Nursing|25 Comments

Workplace Violence: Whose Problem Is It?

By Julianna Paradisi, RN

Once upon a time, I was the assured quality (AQ) representative for a nursing unit. I attended monthly AQ committee meetings with members from medicine, pharmacy, laboratory, and respiratory therapy to review incident reports. We developed processes for improving patient safety and work flow. Agenda items changed monthly, except for the paper towel dispenser problem.

The unit had a paper towel dispenser, which operated by a lever. It was noisy, disturbing the patients. It did not hold enough paper towels for 24 hours. Since housekeeping did not staff to fill paper towel holders on night shift, physicians and nurses entering the room found them empty after washing their hands in the morning. This angered everyone, so it went on the AQ committee’s agenda.

The unit needed new towel dispensers. However, the committee could not determine whose job it was to research replacements. No one knew which department was responsible for ordering new dispensers, or whose budget would pay for them. Since there were other agenda items to discuss, every month the towel dispenser problem was “parked” for the next meeting. This continued for the entire time I served on AQ. The problem remained unresolved when I moved on.

Workplace violence toward nurses feels like the “irresolvable dilemma” of the paper towel dispenser. Over […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2016-11-21T13:13:58-05:00February 28th, 2011|career, Nursing|1 Comment

About Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN

Who Will Watch the Watchers? Consider Nurses

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The Best Nurses Day Gift: Enough Time With Patients

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Birdcages: An Oncology Nurse on Crucial Information Patients Need About Dying

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The Real Reason Why Older Nurses Don’t Retire

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Workplace Violence: Whose Problem Is It?

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