my nurse influencer

Junk food

A betrayal of patients’ trust

Let’s call him Tim. With a sour face, Tim arrives at the nurse’s office in the elementary school and silently walks to the cabinet for the gummies that…
nurses vote

A healthy democracy needs voting nurses

Nurses are patient advocates, providing compassionate and effective clinical care. We center wellness and justice, and we contend with social factors that cause health disparities. But when it…
loneliness

A Nurse’s View on Loneliness

As a new substitute school nurse, I’m constantly caught off-guard by the number of students who come into the nurse’s office with emotional and mental health issues. These…
generative AI

A Quest to Human-centered AI

Generative AI is a hot topic in healthcare right now. There are a lot of questions about its use and how we can most effectively—and safely—use it in…
Find the center when using social media

A year of finding center

Starting. Beginning. Renewing. It’s a New Year! What’s happening in your nursing practice that needs reflection? How do you “be your own nurse” in 2024? Throughout 2023, the…
authentic

Authentic

Merriam-Webster chose “authentic” as the 2023 word of the year. It seems like this word has been around much longer than 2023. It seems as though “authentic” was…
nurse in flag face mask

Be Your Own Nurse: Your Voice

My work is focused on relationships and caring for individuals and groups. What that means is: Speaking with intention, focused on the impact your words have on your…
Health literacy varies by patient

Being Sharp in Health Literacy

In 2008, I was working as a per diem staff nurse in a medical-surgical unit at what was then called New York Downtown Hospital. New Yorkers of a…
Nurse helping a patient eat

Food, glorious food… wasted

Everyone has heard this: There is so much food, in fact tons of it, wasted. Every day. In 2010, according to the US Department of Agriculture, an estimated…
nurse showing gratitude

Gratitude: It does the body (and soul) good

In late October, I attended the American Academy of Nursing’s Health Policy conference in Washington, DC. I also had the distinct honor of being inducted as a Fellow…
Nurse showing gratitude with her hands over her heart

How being grateful is good for healthcare

About a year ago, one of my graduating students gave me a fan with this Korean text 선생님 사랑해요, which translates to “I love you teacher.” I’m told…
Keep calm

Keep Calm and Caring

Slogans are terse and memorable phrases typically associated with political campaigns and advertising. They’re the progeny of aphorism and axioms. Some of these catchphrases have become such a…
steel fork

Listening to messages

An analogy that I often use to describe my own experiences in tough caregiving situations is to say, “I have a fork in my eye.” I feel distressed…
podcast

Nurse-led Podcasting to Amplify Nursing

There has been an influx of nurse-led podcasts over the past couple of years, which is great! I love nothing more than nurses using their expertise and creativity…
Nurse

Nurses as Pilgrims

The travel writer Rick Steves describes three types of travelers: tourists, traveler, and pilgrims. I’d like to propose that those same terms can be used to describe nurses…
holidays and health

On Health and the Holidays

I first learned about Christmas disease while preparing for a presentation on lab values many years ago. At first glance, I thought it was some sort of a…
Placebo or nocebo

Placebo, nocebo, and nursing care

The term “placebo” entered the English medical lexicon from the Latin word “placeo,” which means “I please” or “I shall please.” Its current usage, which primarily refers to…
Student nurse holding textbooks

Read alert: The decline of reading

A student just 2 weeks from graduation once asked me, “Where is the gallbladder?” With candid unconcern, the student admitted that she had never read a nursing textbook…
nurse reflection

Reflection is nursing practice

Personal and professional self-nursing requires reflection. Yet, in our world today, reflection is seen as something special and ethereal. Only certain people can reflect and the rest of…
Young nurse on her cell phone

The anxious nurse

No one responded to the new nurse’s comment as she returned from answering the patient’s call light.  “I don’t know why they can’t just text me,” she complained.…
Nurse using stethoscope

The case of the vanishing stethoscope

A 2001 study assessed the cardiac auscultation skills of 314 internal medicine residents from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The results revealed consistently low proficiency,…
nurse using storytelling

The Student as Storyteller

The written word is posited to be one of the earliest forms of innovation, yet oral and visual storytelling goes back even further. That is because stories connect…
Figure 1. The Nursing Process and the Innovation Process.

The symbiotic relationship between nursing and design

Like nurses—who can use their degrees in a range of areas from clinical bedside care to research, education, entrepreneurship, history and more—professional designers also encompass many types of…
New nurse sitting in lecture hall

Things I wish I’d known as a new nurse

As I reflect on the many peaks and valleys of my nursing career, I frequently think about the early days and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.…
Nurses with arms crossed

When nurses are betrayed

In studying any specific culture, common phrases always arise from stories. For example, even though there is no water, when nurses are totally overwhelmed, they frequently say, “I’m…
nurses walking through hospital

Why I go to the office

In these waning days of the pandemic, one of the hottest discussions is whether office workers should physically go back to the office and end the work-from-home alternative.…

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