What Do Nurses Need?

“Covid-19 Is ‘Probably Going to End My Career’” is the title of my recent column in the New York Times. The nurse who made that statement spoke to me on the condition of anonymity because her hospital doesn’t like having nurses speak out. So—nurses are afraid to publicly complain about their difficulties on the job, struggle with a lack of PPE and short-staffing, and are overwhelmed by the number of deaths they are seeing. All this has led to the nursing profession being in crisis.

The six ideas below could help nurses drowning in difficulties imposed by Covid find their way back to solid ground.

  1. Staffing legislation. This could mean ratios, or some other way to insure that nurses are not expected to work short. The legislation should also require robust nursing float pools and keep secretarial and nursing assistant support at their usual levels. Units have to be staffed in a way that maximally benefits patients, not just to help balance a hospital’s bottom line.
  2. Mental health support. Nurses as a group are not always open to counseling, but during Covid nurses have spoken out about the emotional toll of the work and their ongoing PTSD. They have recognized their need for mental health support. Hospitals must give nurses health insurance that covers individual counseling, and have mental health resources available on the job for nurses. “Covid broke me” is being said by too many nurses, too often.

    3. […]

2021-03-05T09:52:27-05:00March 5th, 2021|COVID-19, Nursing|1 Comment
Read More

To Be or Not to Be: Choosing Between a Career in Art or Nursing

Art or Nursing, ink and watercolor, 2021 by Julianna Paradisi

The phrase ‘art of nursing’ describes how nurses bring personalized care to our patients. People with creative impulses are often as attracted to health science as to paint and canvas. My own combined career path of artist, writer, and nurse is an example. But although nursing and creative arts careers sometimes overlap, they require very different preparation and academic degrees .

Because of the path I’ve taken, I’m often approached by multitalented young people wanting advice when deciding between dedicating themselves to a career in the arts or taking a chance with building an art career while enjoying a relatively more dependable income in nursing.

A recent email from an artistically gifted high school senior distilled her concerns into these questions:

  • Do you find it rewarding to be a nurse?
  • Did nursing help your art career?
  • Do you have regrets about choosing nursing instead of another career more related to a career in art?
  • What advice would you give about this decision?

Yes, I have found nursing rewarding.

I have written in other blog posts that nursing was not my first choice for a career. I wanted to be a writer and make art, but I come […]

2021-01-27T10:22:15-05:00January 25th, 2021|Nursing, nursing career|4 Comments
Read More

Notes from the AIDS/HIV Epidemic for Nurses Working in the COVID Pandemic

The accounts of nurses working in the midst of this pandemic vividly remind me of my work as a nurse in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. I am reminded of the period when we did not know how the disease was transmitted, when we believed that caring for them involved great personal risk. I remember masking, gowning, and gloving every time I entered a patient room. I still recall the wonderful patients I had the opportunity to care for, and I understand that watching a patient die alone is the probably the most difficult experience that we will ever face as nurses.

I spent years on the front line of the AIDS epidemic and now am teaching future nurses. I am dedicated to helping nurses cope in times of crisis. We have chosen difficult work. Work that is more difficult than we could have possibly understood when we entered nursing school. Work that can also be extremely rewarding. I am proud to be a part of this noble profession, and I hope that it may be useful for me to share some of the things that I have learned.

1. It is extremely important to take care of your physical health.

I remember days I didn’t have time […]

2020-11-09T09:46:50-05:00November 9th, 2020|infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
Read More

Time to Take a Walk

via Wikimedia Commons

“We are bombarded with political ads on television, radio, and social media, and receive an onslaught of annoying robocalls on our phones. And no doubt after the elections are over, we’ll be subjected to endless analyses of the results. I find this constant ‘news awareness’ stressful.”

I wrote these words two years ago for the editorial, “Finding a Peaceful Place,” in the December 2018 issue. I could have written them today, or actually, any day these past few months.

The simple medicine of taking a walk, in the forest or not.

But I also wrote about a way that I find helps me tune out and relieve stress—the simple act of taking a walk. This year, because of the pandemic, my walks have mostly been confined to a few miles around my suburban neighborhood; I don’t think it qualifies as ‘forest bathing,’ but it still refreshes me. Seeing the pure joy of my dog to be out and about is a delight. […]

2020-11-04T09:29:27-05:00November 4th, 2020|personal health practices, Public health, wellness|0 Comments
Read More

How Do Nurses Feel About Assessing for and Promoting Safe Gun Storage?

My grandfather and uncles were hunters, and they always looked forward to their forays into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during deer hunting season. But while I was well aware of their activities, they never brought their guns into our house. So I never gave any thought to gun safety issues, even after I became a nurse—not even after caring for one memorable patient, a young man my own age who had been accidentally shot by a companion during a hunting trip.

What can nurses do?

“…a child finds an unlocked loaded gun and accidentally shoots themselves or someone nearby, a despondent teenager makes a rash decision to end their life with the family gun, a homeowner mistakes a family member for an intruder.”

It seems that we read about tragedies like these every day. Can nurses help prevent them? The American Academy of Nursing has recommended that health care professionals “assume a greater role in preventing firearm injuries by health screening.”

In “Nurses’ Knowledge and Comfort with Assessing Inpatients’ Firearm Access and Providing Education on Safe Gun Storage” in the September issue of AJN, Kimberly Smith Sheppard and colleagues report on their original research study, which examined nurses’ knowledge and comfort with assessing patients’ access to […]

2020-10-05T10:43:01-04:00October 5th, 2020|Nursing, nursing research, Public health|0 Comments
Read More

Comment ground rules

1. Please be respectful.
2. We moderate all comments.

Content disclaimer

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.
Go to Top