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Quality: The Anonymous Superhero of Nursing

“Clark Kent has his Superman cape, while I have my spreadsheets of data and the ability to set goals and track them.”

This guest post is by Tasha Poslaniec. A registered nurse for 16 years, Tasha has worked in multiple areas, including obstetrics and cardiology. She currently works as a perinatal quality review nurse. She is one of the most viewed nursing writers on Quora, and has had essays published by the Huffington Post.

In the world of comics, Superman’s alter ego is the incognito Clark Kent. But in fact, that nerdy, data-oriented, and unassuming reporter, whose mission is to “bring truth to the forefront, and fight for the little guy,” could very easily be a quality review nurse.

The comparison between the two might seem a stretch at first, but there are some parallels that are worth pursuing—especially in the context of understanding who and what your quality nurse is, what quality nurses do, and how Clark Kent’s mission isn’t far from quality nurses’ own motivation for what we do.

An anonymous nursing role.

First, let me put into perspective exactly how anonymous most quality nurses are. Do you know who works in your quality department? Do you know where your quality department is? Did you even know that you have a quality department? If you said no to all three of those questions, then […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:00:54-05:00October 11th, 2016|career, Nursing, nursing roles, patient safety|0 Comments

Dark Water, Wild Winds: Notes of a Flight Nurse

I must see new things
And investigate them.
I want to taste dark water
And see crackling trees and wild winds.
—Egon Schiele

Repatriation

I’m standing on the tarmac in Manaus, Brazil, where there is indeed a wild wind; it blows debris across the runway yet does nothing to stave off the nearly intolerable heat. Sweat soaks my back and drips down the center of my chest. My limbs are heavy with lethargy. The heat index is 110 but it feels much hotter—even the Learjet fails to provide a haven from the equatorial sun.

We’d come to Brazil to repatriate an Englishman who’d been visiting family and was struck down by sudden and severe seizures. He’d spent weeks in the hospital, sustaining scans and diagnostics to pinpoint the cause, and endured the addition of one antiepileptic medication after another.

While the seizures finally ceased, he was left disquieted and uncomfortable, unsure which symptoms were due to the 7 cm brain mass that had been discovered and which were side effects of the myriad of antidotes. By the time we were dispatched for this mission, he was medically stable and ready to go home to deal with the ominous findings. Biopsies awaited and treatments would […]

Marcy Phipps, BSN, RN, CCRN, CFRN2016-11-21T13:01:03-05:00July 27th, 2016|career, Nursing, nursing stories, patient experience|0 Comments

The Quandary of Scheduling Vacation Time for Nurses

While shopping in a grocery store, I passed a display of craft brew beer that caught my eye. The sign read Hospice Beer! After a double take, I saw on closer inspection that the label actually read: Hop-Slice Beer.

I realized I was badly in need of a summer vacation. Fortunately, I already had one scheduled on the books.

Summer is a traditional time for vacations, but often not for nurses, for multiple reasons.

Paid time off benefits vary from organization to organization.

Some lump vacation hours and sick leave hours into the same bank, while others separate the two so that nurses accrue hours into each per pay period. Paid vacation time accrues slowly when it’s used for paid sick time.

Further, after accepting a new job, nurses may find that as the newbie they accrue vacation and sick leave hours at a rate lower than their colleagues hired earlier; this practice, called tiered employment, exists within many industries outside of health care, whether they’re union or not. The practice can foster division between the newly hired and existing staff within units. Newer hires accrue less benefits for the same amount of work as their peers. The practice is a double-edged […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2016-11-21T13:01:03-05:00July 25th, 2016|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments

Summertime: Time to Write

karindalziel/ via Flickr Creative Commons

July 4th has come and gone and summer still stretches out before us. For many, summer is a time to relax and take things a bit slower. Working moms and dads don’t have to deal with school projects; faculty have no or at least fewer classes to teach. It’s the perfect time to write—or at least start—that article you’ve had on your “To Do” list for the last year (or two or three).

Many budding authors tell me that the hardest part about writing is getting started, so here are suggestions from a pair of editors and writers who teach writing workshops (included, along with several other writing tips, in my 2014 editorial on the topic):

Set a consistent time to write, even if it’s only 15 minutes a day. Make an appointment with yourself and honor it as you would an appointment with someone else. Make yourself sit down and write—and write anything to begin; you don’t need to start at the beginning or do an outline. Once you get rolling, you can always write for a longer time.
“Start anywhere, but start. And keep your hand moving, whether you’re using a pen or a keyboard. Whether it’s because of muscle memory or the […]
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Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2016-11-21T13:01:06-05:00July 11th, 2016|career, narratives, Nursing|1 Comment

Is It Time to Retire the Term ‘Midlevel Practitioner’?

What are the implications of calling advanced practice nurses “midlevel practitioners”? According to Rachel Scherzer, a nurse educator and critical care nurse, such a term pigeonholes APNs in an implied (and disproven) hierarchy of value and quality of care rather than in relation to specific competencies and expertise.

In the Viewpoint essay in the July issue of AJN, Scherzer describes some of the reasons why such terms aren’t just inaccurate, they damage the standing of the profession:

Policymakers use the term while developing health care policy, health care economists use it when reporting data and performing cost analyses, and other health care providers use it in the clinical setting. . . . This term is both diminutive and inaccurate, implying that these professionals cannot provide the same level of care as other members of the interprofessional care team. Referring to APNs as “midlevel” practitioners contributes to a general misunderstanding of their role and of the services they provide.

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