Category: Nursing

The Gray Area of Nursing: Being Uncertain of One’s “Moral Role.”

Here’s a great example how one nurse saved a patient’s life. Speaking Up to Save a Life by Diane Szulecki, Associate Editor American Journal of Nursing October 2016 – Volume 116 – Issue 10 – p 68–69     Abstract   A nurse’s advocacy alters the path of a patient with locked-in syndrome. On a…… Continue reading The Gray Area of Nursing: Being Uncertain of One’s “Moral Role.”

Unsolved Mystery?

Originally posted on Getting Older: Charting the Uncharted:
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…

A Hospice Nurse is Featured in The New Yorker

Larissa MacFarquhar is a staff writer for the New Yorker. She has written profiles on “do-gooders,” people whose altruistic acts “spring from genuine empathy.” Her subjects are varied: Quentin Tarantino, Diane von Furstenberg and Paul Krugman. Most recently she spotlighted Heather Meyerend, not a famous person, but a nurse. Her story starts on page 62…… Continue reading A Hospice Nurse is Featured in The New Yorker

 I Am Grateful to the Nurses

In 2013 I toured the new intensive care units back at the hospital where I volunteer. At the time I was acutely aware how outdated my nursing skills were and realized that I wouldn’t even be safe to flip on a light switch. The state-of-the-art machines were daunting. I never thought that three years later…… Continue reading  I Am Grateful to the Nurses

Patients Change Us: A Formative Nursing Experience — Off the Charts

From boliston, via Flickr Many years ago, I was given the greatest gift by a patient who had no idea he would change my life and define my professional outlook as a nurse. While not every nurse will be fortunate enough to have such an explicit experience of the effect of the care they provide… via…… Continue reading Patients Change Us: A Formative Nursing Experience — Off the Charts

The Surreal Hospital Experience

My husband was discharged from the hospital following two heart valve replacements, and a week later was readmitted with a side effect of the surgery that occurs ten percent of the time. He was taken to his room directly from the ER. I hadn’t the foresight to bring along my coloring book and pencils—mindless relaxing…… Continue reading The Surreal Hospital Experience

Hearing Zebras

Zebra is the American medical slang for arriving at an exotic medical diagnosis when a more commonplace explanation is more likely.[1] It is shorthand for the aphorism coined in the late 1940s by Dr. Theodore Woodward, professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who instructed his medical interns: “When you hear hoofbeats, think…… Continue reading Hearing Zebras

Unconventional Nursing

This Post from 2012–written by my fellow nursing classmate, Ruth Donoghue–describes an episode occurring in the early ’90s. Early ‘90’s December NAKED IN THE DELIVERY ROOM Nursery in a Catholic hospital where 5,000 babies pass through in a year The call comes via unit secretary A nurse is requested as soon as possible to pick…… Continue reading Unconventional Nursing

Nursing Stories by the Hundreds!

Now that my book has been reworked and has a new title—Playing Sheriff: A Nurse Practitioner’s Story—I am ready to get it in print. In order to do this, I’ve been looking for books about nursing, and preferably written by a nurse. to see how these reached publication. First of all, I found out was…… Continue reading Nursing Stories by the Hundreds!