Nancy Martin, RN, PHN, is a public health nurse home visitor in Santa Rosa, CA, who works with high risk families — and she asked us to help: The families I visit are all low income, with social and medical risk factors such as homelessness, drug addiction, serious medical problems, domestic violence and more. She wrote us because […]
Your nurse was not always a nurse. Take Annell Farris, who became a nurse at age 59 (!) and won one of our nurse photo contests. People can come to nursing from very different backgrounds, and former brick maker John McElroy is a great example. “I worked in a local brick factory for about twenty-five years,” […]
“What makes a nurse not only a good nurse but a hero?” That’s the key question Courtney Butler raised after we called for your nursing superhero stories. What would your answer be? We present two more examples here. Courtney knows who hers is: Cindy Varra, a Registered Nurse in Colorado. Kiuarna Summers wrote in to explain why […]
Melissa Gersin was an EMT and a pediatric nurse – not very different from any of you. Then she hit on the idea of designing the “Tranquilo Mat”, a baby soothing mat which emulates the sounds and movements of the womb. Now she is a successful businesswoman, who persuaded not just one, but three of […]
“This is supposed to be a place where we save and heal people,” Donna Lee Peterkin told a news conference this week. She is a registered nurse at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center in New York City, and recounted what she did when Henry Bello went on his brutal shooting spree exactly one week ago. She was […]
A hospital system in Northern Texas has been offering hundreds of its employees the chance to go to nursing school and get an associate degree in nursing — for free, Dallas News reported this week. Medical City Healthcare, which runs 13 hospitals, will pay for their tuition, fees, books and uniforms, as long as they make a two-year […]
Pediatric nurse Melissa Gersin was having a particularly stressful shift in the nursery. Three babies all needed soothing, but there wasn’t much equipment, so she used her hands, feet, voice and cellphone to tend to everything at the same time. She would hush one child in a bassinette, move the seat of a second baby […]
If you’ve been a nurse for long enough, you’ve seen it all. Things that made you laugh, cry and roll your eyes. And a couple of things no-one else would believe! But what’s the sweetest thing that ever happened to you as a nurse? We’d love to hear about it, and today is just the day […]
It’s May 25, so it’s National Tap Dance Day! (Yes, it really exists. It’s official, even. President Bush signed it into law in 2004.) Which is great fun, but what could it possibly have to do with nurses? Well, we dug into the YouTube archives and we found a link. It’s quite amusing, and instructive to boot! This […]
Being a nurse is deeply rewarding in many ways, but hey, it’s okay — all of us, in any profession, sometimes daydream about other lives we could be living. What’s your secret fantasy career? Do you still sometimes wonder how good an astronaut you would have been? What life as a fashion designer would be […]
