• A Nurse By Any Other Name—

    A Nurse By Any Other Name—

    I read the New York Times article, A Small Picture Approach to Health Care last week with so what’s new thoughts hopping in my head. Sure, the economics of funding health care services continues to be a challenge but we nurses can see the real change agent of this model’s Advocate Health Care approach is the……

  • Never Too Old

    I am empowered knowing age does not limit our creativity. James Arruda Henry learned to read and write in his mid-nineties. He didn’t stop there but went on to write a book: In a Fisherman’s Language. As a gerontological nurse practitioner and woman of a certain age I am delighted to promote his story.

  • Long Lost Story

    Just last week I came across a folder in an old box on the bottom of a closet. There I found accordion-pleated sheets of paper where I had written about the Donovan family in single space dot-matrix some twenty years ago. Bill Donovan had lung cancer with metastasis to his bones and brain. He died……

  • The Importance of the Poem

    The Importance of the Poem

    Earlier today I attended a poetry reading at an independent bookstore a few miles south of where I live. A former instructor of mine, Florence Nash, along with two other female poets read from their chapbooks. Throughout the readings, I drifted on the words, phrases, rhythms, twists, poignancy, humor and surprise endings. I took Ms.……

  • The Murder Building

    When I visited a patient in my caseload that lived in an “unsafe” part of the city, I went in the morning. Right after the pimps and drug dealers had called it a night and before the shop keepers pulled up the bars over the store windows and the women came out to sweep the……

  • Unsolved Mystery?

    This happened long ago. I worked for a hospital-based home care program. We, nurse practitioners, received referrals from physicians who had exhausted all options to prolong the patients’ life. We visited the patient in his home and helped the family care for him until death. Traditional hospice services were not an option as yet. My……