Take a minute this week to pray for those who are living with a mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in four adults--approximately 60 million Americans--experiences a mental health disorder in a given year, so we don't have to look far. Last Sunday, I attended the 25th Annual Candlelight …
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 …
Continue reading Passing Along Advice to My Younger Nursing Colleagues
For that nurse or nursing student in your life, consider giving them Caring Lessons: A Nursing Professor's Journey of Faith and Self. My career memoir tells my story from nurse's aide to professor emerita and from diploma to PhD. Caring Lessons will inspire the reader that achieving career dreams are possible! I used to tell my …
Continue reading Christmas Present for a Nurse or Nursing Student – 2013
“Just grab the head and don’t let go,” the nurse barked at me. “And the rest of the body will come along. “ I hesitated, frightened. “Just grab it, will you?” The nurse barked louder. “I can assure you it won’t fall off.” It was the summer of 1959. I was seventeen years old and …
Continue reading Caring Lessons: First Drafts–Nursing Care of a Baby with Hydrocephalus in the 50s
Once upon a time, two women in their late sixties met at church and soon became friends. Letty is now 76 and Martha 74. Martha is a widow and moved to Letty’s small town after her retirement and the death of her husband to be near her children. Last week, Letty sent me this email, …
Last week I read an article about “patient activation” with some amusement. Activation sounded like batteries. Did patients need a couple of Triple As inserted into the soles of their feet to get involved in their own health care? The article defined patient activation as “understanding one’s own role in the care process and having …
Continue reading Patient Activation – Nostalgia for Dorothea Orem!
"If only" runs through my mind as I remember our 50th reunion of a week ago. Twenty-nine of forty classmates (three have died) met at Camp Geneva in Holland, Michigan, from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. Many of us, as proud members of the Blodgett Memorial Hospital School of Nursing Class of 1962, had not …
I"m working on a speech to nurses about why we should write our nursing stories. I came up with a host of reasons, twenty-three to be exact, but the one that grounds all the other reasons I read in Carolyn Heilbrun's Writing a Woman's Life, published in 1988. This book is a classic because in …
I turned on my computer this morning to find this message: Congratulations on Saving Lives for 50 Years! Today marks the 50th anniversary of our graduation from BMH School of Nursing . Do you have any memories of that day? The greeting came from our committee chair for our fiftieth reunion that we're having next …
Have you been hospitalized lately? If so, this NPR story about nurse staffing will interest you. How long did it take for a nurse to answer your call bell? How often did a nurse come to assess your status? How much time did the nurse have to spend with you? I'm not surprised with the …
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