Want to keep up with the nursosphere? The most recent Change of Shift, a regular compendium of links to blog posts by nurses, nursing students, and sundry others is now up over at Emergiblog.
Although I'd been a nurse for more than 20 years, this was the first time I had been so completely dependent on the health care system. I felt vulnerable. I knew too much. I needed to feel confident that the ED nurse assessing my injuries would do a thorough job and give unqualified support to a fellow nurse-turned-patient.
In addition to the preconference workshops, keynote presentation, concurrent sessions, and panels that are the norm for large, national meetings, the conference will also include poster sessions. I think many nurses not involved in research or from academia ignore posters and think of them as “not-quite-good-enough-to-be-real-sessions” topics. That’s far from the truth in most instances, especially in established conferences that have “name” presenters filling program slots. We see poster sessions as a way to highlight new work, work that may not have broad appeal but is important, or that extends topics covered in a session.
In nursing, we need commitment, caring, and a desire to further the profession, not individuals who choose it because they can’t be something else. The former physicians in this article may become excellent nurses, and I give them the benefit of the doubt—but even so, when I read an article like this I can’t help thinking, not for the first time, that our system would have better outcomes if there was a little more humility.
In our discussions of how to “brand” AJN, we on staff have sometimes referred to it as “the journal for the career-minded nurse.” I’ve often wondered who those nurses are. Some might think they’re that small percentage of nurses who go on for advanced degrees (only 13% of nurses, according to one source) or those who move into management positions.