The Perception Treadmill: Has Nursing’s Status Really Gone Anywhere?

a Treadmill

By Margaret Gallagher, BSN, RN. Margaret is a cardiovascular nurse currently working in Georgia. Her last post for this blog was “Return on Investment: A Mother Makes Her Wishes Clear.”

Usually, it’s nice to share stories among friends you haven’t worked with in a while. However, I haven’t been able to let go of one such recent conversation.*

“You want to know what really burns me?” asked Lisa, a long-time nurse, as I sipped my coffee. “The rumors had been going around for a while that the residents get an incentive if the patients’ coag levels stay within therapeutic range. You know that John and I go way back; I decided to just flat out ask him.”

I listened attentively, expecting that Lisa and John’s friendship wouldn’t keep the attending MD from laughing her out of the ICU for this one.

Lisa glowed like an electric oven coil. “John told me it was true, and with a straight face! How dare they! All the residents do is click on ‘heparin protocol’ in the computer when the patient’s admitted. We draw the labs, follow the protocols, and titrate the drip around the clock until the patient is transferred, but they get the bonus. Does that stink or what?”

I couldn’t help but think back to my very first code. It was three states away and nearly three decades ago. For those who’ve never worked in a teaching […]

2016-11-21T13:12:06-05:00August 22nd, 2011|career, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Don’t Cling to Tradition: A Nursing Student’s Call for Realism, Respect

By Medora McGinnis. Medora is a student at Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing in Richmond, Virginia, and the 2011-2012 Imprint Editor of the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA). This is her first post for this blog. 

There was a time when the majority of all nursing programs were diploma programs, emphasizing practice over theory. They were largely based out of hospitals and proved very well suited for this training. Popular among students, they provided the majority of the nursing workforce well into the 1950s. But these programs began to lose popularity as they were supplanted by other forms of training. At the same time, patient care was shifting and hospital care costs were exploding. By the late 1970s, 40 diploma programs were closing their doors every year.

The year is now 2011, and there are less than 40 diploma programs nationwide. I am a senior nursing student in one of these programs, and have been a part of their transition from the diploma to the four-year BSN. My graduating class will be the last of the diploma graduates, and many of us plan to continue our education and quickly complete an RN-to-BSN program. Why? Certainly to maintain our momentum, and to be competitive in today’s workforce. But the undertone in the nursing community, especially among young and new nurses, is that the BSN […]

2016-11-21T13:12:22-05:00July 26th, 2011|career, students|17 Comments
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Feel the Power (What Nursing Can Learn from the Dancing Man)

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief—Writing in a recent blog post on NursingTimes.net (a UK-based site), Mark Radcliffe poses this question:

“Do you, as a nurse, feel you have any collective power to influence policy? Are we as well versed as other professional groups in articulating loudly and clearly why nursing needs to be the foundation stone of any health service?”

I thought it was a good question for us here in the United States. Most U.S. nursing associations, nurse executives, and deans are invested in politics. The recent Institute of Medicine Report on the Future of Nursing is the most recent example of how nursing is collectively trying to influence health policy.

But I still wonder how many nurses involved in direct care feel that the politics of health is something they need to pay attention to. It seems that it’s only when it becomes part of the job, directly affects one’s ability to perform a job, or has an impact on one’s financial well-being that many people get involved.

When I was a young nurse, I and many in my cohort didn’t pay attention to things like politics or getting involved in associations. We were new and intent on acquiring skills and becoming competent in our jobs, and politics seemed esoteric and something we needn’t be concerned about.

But within two years, I found myself in court on a workmen’s compensation claim for an illness I’d contracted from a patient. I was going to be out of work for four to six […]

2016-11-21T13:12:29-05:00July 5th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Year of the Nurse? ‘Don’t Get Mad, Get Elected’

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief—Comparing the increase of nurses in Congress in the 2010 midterm elections to the near doubling of the number of women in Congress back in 1992, an article in a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation electronic newsletter last week suggested that perhaps 2010 could be called ‘The Year of the Nurse.’ The article noted that there are now seven nurses in the U.S. House of Representatives—four Democrats and three Republicans—up from three in the previous Congress. This is certainly progress, but we’ve yet to gain a nurse in the U.S. Senate.

Nurses see the results of failed social policies every day. We do tremendous work providing restorative care, teaching self-care practices, and promoting behaviors that will maximize health. But how many of us seriously think of engaging in the politics of health care? Instead of promoting health and changing lives on a case-by-case basis, when you hold political office you can affect the health of an entire population. Nursing education provides us with an incredible set of skills: critical thinking, creative problem solving, people skills, time management, the ability to set priorities and to constantly reevaluate their order—to say nothing of multitasking. […]

2016-11-21T13:12:42-05:00June 15th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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