Month: August 2015

Nursing memoirs. I dream of two full rows in the bookstores of memoirs written by nurses. I see many more written by doctors. Why not nurses? Why not us? Yes, there are a few anthologies, but this is not like the life story of a nurse. And most of the nursing memoirs out there are about what I call “blood and guts” nursing—intensive care, emergency room, war.

But memoirs don’t have to be high drama to give folks a feel for what it is we nurses do and why we chose this profession. Just our day to day can be interesting. Enough to inspire those thinking about nursing to fall over the edge in love with our work. It’s our privilege at this time of a dire nursing shortage to be “advertisers” for the profession.

Get out your pen and start today. I used to tell my nursing students to…

So, last time, I promised more posts about our river tour along the Danube, Main, and Rhine rivers. Well, internet remained sketchy, so I wasn’t able to. More about the trip later, though.

Now, back in my regular retired life in Chicago, I am pleased to present this review of a book written by nurse, author, and New York Times blogger Theresa Brown. The review mentions the “cognitive multitasking” that nurses do, when bystanders may think nurses are kind of just there in the background.

Working a Shift with Theresa Brown gets at what my friend Marianna Crane and I aimed to do when we wrote our nursing memoirs. To show not only what nurses do, but how they think. What goes into their decision-making to choose nursing as a profession, their clinical specialty (child health, adult health, mental health, and more), their role (bedside nurse, teacher, nurse practitioner…

Memory Shelf

As I look back over my 40-year nursing career, I sometimes wish I were still in the classroom so I could tell my students a few things I’ve come to believe are important on the road to becoming leaders. I say leaders, because we need leaders at this time of transition in our health care system as we wrestle with terms such as accessibility, affordability, choices, quality, safety, value, and innovations.

That’s a mouthful, I know. Jargon, you may say. So let me pare down what I want to share with you to three ordinary words of advice*: learn, listen, and empower.

What comes to your mind when you think about each one?

When I think of learn, I remember all the classrooms I’ve sat in at degree-granting programs, as well as countless in-services, conferences, and conventions. And I remember tidbits of all the conversations I’ve had…