Everyday photographs of nurses doing their jobs and interacting with patients are being displayed January 24-January 28 in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. The images portray nurses in their everyday work routine, illustrating the importance of nursing, reported Newswise. The photo exhibit, Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work, is an award-winning presentation from the American Journal of Nursing. The photographs...  Read More »

Nurses’ long work hours are connected with patients’ chances of dying from heart attacks or pneumonia, according to researchers at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who published their findings in the January/February issue of the journal Nursing Research. Researchers found that long shifts and lack of time off contributed to poor patient outcomes, including...  Read More »

An Orthodox Jewish nurse who wasn’t hired after saying she couldn’t work on the Sabbath has been granted $40,000 from New York City in a discrimination settlement, reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). In 2007, Alisa Dolinsky was offered a job by Color-Goldwater Specialty Hospital & Nursing Facility, New York City but after telling them that due to her religious practices she could not work on the Sabbath, they terminated her from...  Read More »

Inserting a bladder catheter, a nasogastric tube, and an IV stick are a few regular tasks that a nurse does on a day-to-day basis. But do nurses enjoy it? In a recent blog post, blogger The Nerdy Nurse shares that although these are regular nursing duties, she is feels a sense of pride and accomplishment after performing these tasks. “There is just something inside of me, a switch, if you will, that turns on and I get into nurse zone,”...  Read More »

You’ve just completed an 12 hour shift and all you want to do is head home to relax. Just before your shift ends, however, a patient is admitted with internal bleeding. Nurse blogger The Nerdy Nurse recently posted on some of the reasons why she hates getting an admission at a shift change. Here’s a few of her reasons: Patients almost never have an accurate medication list or their medication bottles. The patient room is often filled...  Read More »

Each year, HealthLeaders Media names its HealthLeaders 20, 20 individuals who are profiled for changing the world of healthcare for the better. Those chosen range from the famous to the unknown, from physicians, to trauma surgeons, to professors, and to CEO’s. This year, one of these 20 inspirational people is someone who exposed a touchy subject that permeates through hospitals: bullying and hostility by nurses and physicians. Kathleen...  Read More »

Summer is a great time of year for the beach, ice cream, warm weather, and relaxation. But for hospitals, it’s one of the worst times of the year. A study published in the August’s issue of The Journal of General Internal Medicine researched the worst times of the year to be in the hospital in terms of highest risk for medication errors, hospital-acquired infections, and surgical errors. It turns out the worst time is July, which is...  Read More »

Rather than waiting months to see a surgeon, why not see a nurse practitioner? That’s the idea examined in a recent study done from Canada’s Toronto Western Hospital, published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. An interesting article on MSCBC.com discusses the findings. In the study, a nurse practitioner examined 177 spine patients and provided the exact same diagnosis as two spine surgeons in all of the cases. Patients also reported...  Read More »

The union National Nurses United notified the DC Health Department on Monday that understaffing is taking place at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, therefore endangering patient safety. National Nurses United allegedly filed a 19-page report referencing 50 different incidents pertaining to patient care, and asked the Health Department to investigate, reported The Washington Post. The report says that due to nurse understaffing...  Read More »

Nurses care for hundreds of patients during their career. Ask any nurse and they’ll have happy stories, sad stories, crazy stories, and even horror stories of difficult patients they’ve dealt with. A blog by psychiatric nurse Angela Brook speaks about difficult patients: “We do not always like the patients to whom we administer care. It sounds harsh, but let’s be honest, we do not have to like them. We do however, have to provide...  Read More »