I don’t know if my input made the least difference in the final product, but some months ago I was contacted by a writer for Nurse Jackie who wanted to talk with me about nursing and the series. I told her that I wasn’t looking for the perfect nurse character, since I know that perfection is not the stuff of great drama and comedy.
I will probably be stoned by some of my colleagues for not boycotting a program that revolves around a nurse who has an addiction. But as far as I can tell, Nurse Jackie is tough, funny, and, above all, a smart nurse who is a fierce advocate for her patients.
Recently, school nurses have been given a lot of recognition from the media, including AJN (here’s the most recent post, which contains links to several others). I was really happy to see them finally getting the credit they deserve. I was a school nurse for a while and I know firsthand how often they are taken for granted.
The first year, I worked for the New York City Department of Health as a per diem nurse, going to a different school almost every day to fill in for nurses that were out for the day. The following year I worked full-time at a school for the NYC Department of Education. (Department of Health nurses take care of mainstream students and Department of Education nurses are placed in schools to care for children with special needs.) I couldn’t believe how poorly I was treated by administration, students, and teaching staff. I quickly realized that school nurses were considered to be either glorified Band-Aid distributors or the place where children went to avoid classes they didn’t enjoy. […]
When I went looking for blogs by student nurses recently, I found plenty—but most appeared to be deserted, as if their authors had literally packed up and moved away after graduation. That’s understandable—and kind of a shame. Things can get interesting fast when one finds oneself suddenly working with real people in an ED or an ICU. Lucky for us, a few newly minted nurses are blogging on just that. (To comply with HIPAA regulations, most bloggers report that they alter patient details and scenarios.)
At Call Bells Make Me Nervous, Maha, “a shiny new nurse” (degree unspecified), blogs […]
“When is ‘Kid’s Day’?” That’s what I asked my mother on Mother’s Day one year, after she’d finished opening her gifts from the five of us. And—like many who’ve asked before—I was told, “Every day is Kid’s Day.” This led me to realize that people who have days or weeks dedicated to them must have it pretty bad the rest of the year. Professions with prestige and power don’t have a day or a week. So how can nurses be seen as equal professionals if we have Nurses Week? […]