When Devices Do the Thinking for RNs, What Training Still Matters?

By Sheena Jones. (Sheena is an LPN in training to be an RN at Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, NY.)

So I’m sitting at home on a rare day off and I get a phone call. It’s the supervisor trying to locate one of the many devices each staff member has to sign in and out at the beginning and end of each shift. The hospital I work for uses bar code scanners, wireless computers, PDAs, and Vocera badges. These things are supposed to reduce errors and in general make the jobs of staff members easier. Once I get to work I feel like I have to put on a utility belt to carry all of these devices.

With all of these machines to think for me, I wonder if all of the schooling I’m enduring to go from my LPN to RN is obsolete. Yes, compassion and empathy can’t be taught or replaced by technology. But sometimes it seems to me that a technology-savvy teenager could do much of this job, as long as she could stomach the visuals at the bedside. I remember studying night and day for an exam about calculating medication dosages, only to discover that the computers give the exact dosage and that drugs come from the pharmacy just as they should be given.

Maybe we are a little bit dependent on technology. You should see the mass panic when there is an electrical surge. Nurses often waste time finding computers on wheels (affectionately known as […]

2016-11-21T13:18:47-05:00March 15th, 2010|career, students|5 Comments
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Helping Nurses Overcome Barriers to the Baccalaureate

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

It’s not always easy for a nurse with an associate’s degree to obtain a baccalaureate. Many may have families to care for or support. Financial and time pressures can be considerable. The part-time community college model is great when it comes to obtaining the associate’s degree, but then many who want to advance find the door closed: they can’t afford the higher tuition at a local private school offering the baccalaureate, or they can’t travel from a rural community to an urban center where a city or state school is located, or they need to do a portion of their coursework on a part-time basis. With such barriers in place, how will we ever solve the nursing shortage?

These problems are being addressed. Last week I had the opportunity to speak with several faculty from the program in nursing at Queensborough Community College (QCC), City University of New York, including Tina Iakovou and Marge Riley, both assistant professors; Anne Marie Menendez, chair of the program; and Lucy O’Leary, a “student success advocate.” The meeting took place at the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City. Also present were Christine Tanner, a distinguished professor at Oregon Health and Sciences University (OHSU), and Marilyn DeLuca, formerly of the  Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence.

We were there to discuss the unique collaboration QCC has with Hunter-Bellevue, one based on a model developed by Tanner and colleagues in Oregon. Tanner […]

2016-11-21T13:20:31-05:00December 21st, 2009|Nursing|0 Comments
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A Nursing Student Learns the Trick of Reassurance

NovemberReflectionsI wasn’t sure why Mary Sue was in long-term care, but I could tell she had dementia. She spent most of her time in a recliner near the nurse’s station, asking anyone who walked by why she couldn’t go back to bed.

“It isn’t time yet, Mary Sue,” the staff would reply. I asked one of the nurses why they didn’t just take her back to bed. “When we do,” she told me, “she asks to return to the chair. Out here we can keep an eye on her. She can look out the window. She smiles more often.”

But I had yet to see a smile. This was my first rotation as a nursing student, and I tried to use techniques I’d read about to distract Mary Sue: towel folding, cards, books. But she remained on target, reaching out to me and repeating her request with a distraught look on her face. . .

Read the rest of the November Reflections essay,  written by a nurse looking back on her first nursing school rotation five years ago. The basic human need for reassurance is shared by all of us, whether we are patients or providers. What do you do to stay centered during the day, to remind yourself of your own value, to focus on what really matters . . . or just to stay in the game?

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2016-11-21T13:21:27-05:00October 27th, 2009|nursing perspective, students|0 Comments
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What Do You Wish You’d Learned in Nursing School?

Dietetics class for nurses, 1918/Cornell University Library/via Flickr Dietetics class for nurses, 1918/Cornell University Library/via Flickr

By Christine Moffa, MSN, RN, clinical editor

While I was going through nursing school I imagined that our clinical rotations would prepare us for the reality of working in a hospital. I was very eager to graduate and get my first job. Had I known that I was in for the hardest year of my life, I probably would have changed majors. I was hired to work the night shift in the float pool of a children’s hospital. That is a bad idea right there and I wish someone was there to talk me out of it. But on top of that, I found it difficult to express by opinion when residents and nurses with more experience did not heed my concerns about patients who were decompensating. And calling the attending in the middle of the night did not seem like a good option. I wish I had been told in nursing school that the nurse supervisor is a great resource to go to in times like these.

We often hear stories of what a shock it is for a nurse to finally start a nursing job after finishing school. Is there anything nursing schools could do to change this? What do you wish you’d learned?

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2016-11-21T13:21:50-05:00October 8th, 2009|nursing perspective, students|10 Comments
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Role Reversal: Remember That Nursing Student You Almost Failed?

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.

2016-11-21T13:23:44-05:00August 14th, 2009|career, nursing perspective, students|0 Comments
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