In my last post I discussed the Woodhull Study that was published in 1998, which showed nurses were quoted in the media (newspapers) 4% of the time. The 2017 replication of study showed a drop to 2%. Click here to view a video discussing the study, findings, limitations, and input from a panel of journalists/media…… Continue reading Are Nurses Losing Ground? Part 2
Category: Nursing
Are Nurses Losing Ground?
I wrote the following blog on February 10, 2013. I can’t believe I was the only one. In my last post I referenced The Truth About Nursing blog in which we are asked to write to two journalists who did not mention nurses in their article in Businessweek about Hillary Clinton’s hospitalization. The story read…… Continue reading Are Nurses Losing Ground?
Nurses Give Hope Through Stories
“Nurses give hope through their stories.” I heard this from Lee Woodruff who spoke about her role as caregiver for her husband. A roadside bomb in Iraq had wounded Bob Woodruff, a news reporter. His wife spoke on the last day of the Beryl Conference that I attended in Chicago two weeks ago. Ms.…… Continue reading Nurses Give Hope Through Stories
The Perks of Serving on the Board
I have served on the Family Patient Advisory Council at my local hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina since it’s inception a little over two years ago. I became the first Chair and now I am the Senior Chair. This last week, the hospital funded my travel to Chicago to attend the Patient Experience Conference…… Continue reading The Perks of Serving on the Board
A Broken Man Who is Hard to Forget
Richey rolled himself in a manual wheelchair into the exam room of the spinal cord clinic for the first time on a warm spring day in April. He managed to lift his quivering right arm to shake my hand. I was the new nurse practitioner in charge of his care. He had some ability to…… Continue reading A Broken Man Who is Hard to Forget
Nightingale Tales
My new project involves interviewing my classmates from nursing school. We “older nurses” are dying off. Who will be around to tell our stories? As I gear up to start this project, I’m educating myself in the art of interviewing. In the meantime, a serendipitous thing happened. Lynn Dow, RN, wrote about her long career…… Continue reading Nightingale Tales
Twenty Years After the Cancer Diagnosis.
Next Sunday, November 5th, will be the 20th anniversary of my mastectomy. Afterward, my surgeon draped her arm over my shoulders and said I was “cured” as she escorted me out of her office on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. Each November 5th , I would make a big deal of the anniversary date of…… Continue reading Twenty Years After the Cancer Diagnosis.
Nurse at the Switchboard
Ten of us from a class of 44 traveled to Cape May, New Jersey to attend our 55th nursing reunion. We first met as young Catholic teens in the late ’50s enrolled in the diploma program at Saint Peter’s School of Nursing in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Hard to believe we are now in our…… Continue reading Nurse at the Switchboard
Nurses Save Lives
What a pleasant surprise to read that nurses save lives (italics mine) in a news article yesterday, September 21. Unfortunately, the story was not a happy one. The Raleigh, NC News & Observer detailed the memorial service for the crew of a Duke Life Flight Air Ambulance that crashed on September 8 killing…… Continue reading Nurses Save Lives
Laughter: the measure of a friendship
I believe the better the friendship the more raucous the laugher—the real belly laughs that make you think you are going to die of asphyxiation. I have a number of friends that are enjoyable to be with but I have just two or three that make me really laugh. Donna and I worked in home…… Continue reading Laughter: the measure of a friendship
Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted 