Vampire Nurses, PhDs, Your Best Moment as a Nurse: Today’s Notes from the Nursosphere

Here are some recent posts of interest we noticed on the nursing blogs. Many of these blogs can actually be found on our blogroll, so we hope you’re exploring what’s there from time to time, even if we know the list isn’t exhaustive and is probably missing some other excellent (and at least somewhat frequently updated) blogs.

It’s good to know that Will, the nurse/comic artist who shares his drawings at Drawing on Experience, has started posting again more regularly. One of his most recent efforts depicts a night shift nurse as a kind of vampire. It’s funny and, in a way, insightful. We give just a thumbnail version of it below on the right, in the interests of preserving the artist’s copyright; to see it enlarged, click the image and visit the version posted on his site, where you can also find a bunch more drawings, many about his life as a relatively new nurse. 

The INQRI Blog (that INQRI stands for Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative, a real mouthful) has a new post about an increase in enrollment in nursing doctorate programs. Here’s an excerpt:

According to new data released recently by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), enrollment in doctoral nursing programs increased significantly in 2010. The AACN believes that this shows a strong interest in both research-focused and practice-focused doctorates.

The post also connects […]

2016-11-21T13:13:39-05:00March 30th, 2011|career, students|1 Comment
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What Keeps You Up at Night?

Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN, is an infusion practice manager and occasional blogger on this site

A recent national survey revealed that nurses as a profession are the most dependent on coffee (the survey was commissioned, in part, by Dunkin’ Donuts, though at least conducted by Harris Interactive). The survey asked 3,600 people about their productivity as it related to coffee consumption. The results are interesting if not surprising. Physicians fall in just behind nurses, and hotel workers hold third place.

While working the night shift early in my career, I got my caffeine jolt from diet soda. Not too many years later I developed a taste for coffee by adding hot chocolate to it, in effect creating “mochas” before they were sold for $3.50 each. I still prefer fancier concoctions such as flavored lattes, but in a pinch can be found clutching a packet of powdered creamer over a black cup of hotel room coffee. Some may venture to compare my progressive caffeine consumption to an addiction, and I can’t totally discount that theory. But if you consider that the top three positions on the survey may require work during the night, is it surprising that those who do these jobs also report some dependence on a stimulant? Since many of us seem to depend on caffeine to perform […]

2016-11-21T13:15:15-05:00October 18th, 2010|nursing perspective|6 Comments
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Secrets to Staying Safe and Sane on the Night Shift

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, interim editor-in-chief

I recently sent my sister Jean, who works as a night nurse, an article called “Six Ways to Make Working the Night Shift Less Hazardous to Your Health.” The article noted recent research suggesting that shift work could increase your risk of everything from depression to obesity to cardiovascular disease. It also made a few simple suggestions: be consistent, nap before you work, don’t use caffeine (!!!), don’t take melatonin, change your lights, and eat a healthful diet. Here’s what my sister had to say about the article:

Yes, I do agree with the article. I am a night nurse and I always feel like I can’t get enough sleep. The days  I am off I tend to sleep too much. I have also suffered from depression and am on Cymbalta. The best way I found to cope is to try to maintain a “night” routine even when I am off. I go to bed at 2 am or 3 am and sleep until 11 am.  I also do not eat a lot on nights. At  work, I try to eat by 9 pm, and then if I am hungry I will have cereal or fruit. The nights I am off, we eat dinner at 7 pm. My house is quiet during the day as my children are older. If it is the weekend I sometimes wear ear plugs. I keep my bedroom dark. I sometimes take an Ambien to sleep if I work back to back. […]

2016-11-21T13:20:41-05:00December 9th, 2009|nursing perspective|3 Comments
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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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