All Entries Tagged With: "nursing career"
Choosing the winners of the 2011 Nursing Image Awards
I helped pick the winners of the 2011 HCPro Nursing Image Awards, which marks the third year that I’ve had the privilege of being allowed to read through all the hundreds of entries. Click here to read about the winners. The runners up will be profiled next week.
The awards require nominators to submit a 500-word essay about their nominee and describe what makes the person or team of nurses special and how they embody a positive image of nursing. It’s no small task to pen a 500-word essay and include pertinent facts as well as capture the essence of what makes someone stand out, so I am endlessly amazed at the number of people who take the time to craft well-thought out essays.
These essays are both heartwarming and inspiring and often tell me as much about the nominator as they do about the nominee. In some instances, groups of people come together to write a nomination essay. In most, one person crafts his or her personal story about an outstanding nurse.
All of these essays paint a picture of nursing in America that is often lost in the headlines about nursing shortages and picket lines. They provide a look into the heart of the profession and the individual men and women who dedicate themselves every day to their patients. These nurses refuse to accept mediocrity and push themselves and their organizations to continually improve. Whether returning to school for higher education or launching performance improvement initiatives, these nurses embody professionalism, intelligence, and compassion. They are a true representation of the image of nursing.
Tip of the month: Guidelines for using social media as background checks
By Shelley Cohen
The Internet has proved to be a great resource to managers with the greatest challenge seeming to be finding the time to research all that is available to us. Along with medical and nursing resources, the Internet has become a social highway for individuals as well as organizations.
As the generation gap continues to grow, managers are continuously amazed to hear of personal concerns being posted to social networks such as Facebook. On one hand, some of these sites may provide an opportunity for “pre-screening” job applicants. On the other hand, we see the benefit of looking up a prospective applicant and finding out they are a source for purchasing drugs or the real reasons they were fired from their last job. A question raised on the other side of this is one of discriminatory action. What if you declined to hire a person based on a social networking site story about them and you later find out, the posting was unreliable?
Survey results show salary declines for nurse leaders
A survey published in a recent issue of Nursing Management revealed nurse leaders say they’re being paid less these days than they were three years ago.
The survey of about 2,000 nurse leaders indicated that the annual salary in 2010 is $80,170—about $4,000 less than the $83,930 they were making back in 2007—and nurse leaders are not happy about it. Almost 60% said they felt they weren’t being appropriately compensated for the level of responsibility they had within the organization.
Nursing reviews change across the country
Everyone has to undergo a performance review, including nurses. At some facilities, it can take place annually, maybe every six months, or even every other year. Nurses may be asked to fill out a 10-page form that helps their managers score qualities such as “leadership” or “respectfulness.” Or maybe the nurses don’t have to fill out a form, but rather have an electronic system tracking every project they do, and if a task is not completed on time, the information is logged into a performance system.
No matter the case, many organizations are changing the way performance reviews are conducted to separate top performers from underachievers. According to Hewitt Associates, 10% of managers and 11% of other employees are now judged solely on the results they achieve, as opposed to a combination of hard figures and additional behavioral characteristics. [more]
Bedside nurses encouraged to be patient safety champions
The University of Kansas Hospital (KUMED) in Kansas City, KS, has created a program to encourage nurse involvement in patient safety. The program, Quality Safety Investigators (QSI), is a way to improve bedside nurses’ involvement in championing quality and patient care. KUMED provides each nurse involved in the program with tools, resources, and training that focus on unit-specific initiatives. [more]
Stressed out nurses are more likely to have heart attacks
The New York Times recently blogged about studies regarding the ill effects of workplace stress. However, when reading the article, one particular statistic caught my attention: Nurses struggling with excessive work pressure have DOUBLE the risk for a heart attack.
This statistic comes from a study conducted by Danish researchers (the full study can be found here) and was conducted over a 15-year period. In addition to this finding, a British study tracked 6,000 workers for 11 years and found those regularly working more than 10 hours per day had a 60% higher risk for heart disease than those who only worked seven hours daily.
Both these thoughts are frightening, as most nurses work more than seven hours per day, and can be even more prone to have a heart attack! [more]
In the city, some registered nurses may not make the cut
As many healthcare organizations battle the nursing shortage that is only expected to worsen as baby boomers retire and the need for healthcare grows, new nurses entering the field in cities may be greeted with this: An associate degree in nursing is not good enough.
For many new nurses, this may come as a bit of a shock. One Philadelphia nurse received this answer when applying for jobs this spring as he was turned away because organizations were only looking for nurses with a nursing degree or bachelor of science in nursing, and not an associate degree. Even though this nurse was an RN, the organization was not satisfied with his degree because anyone can obtain this degree from a community college.
Those looking to become a nurse have three different options. They can go to school for four years and get a nursing degree or bachelor of science in nursing. Option two: They can get associate’s degrees and only go to school for two to three years, while option three has the individual going to a diploma school for about three years. All three require would-be RNs to pass a licensing exam that tests basic skills; starting pay is about the same. [more]
New findings say progress means more than recognition
A new report in the Harvard Business Review contradicts the idea that employees value recognition of their efforts higher than anything else. Amabile and Kramer write that the top motivator of performance is progress.
The study involved gathering more than 12,000 e-mail diary entries from the participants, which revealed that making progress in one’s work, no matter how little or big, is associated with positive emotions and high motivation. The survey notes when participants experienced progress in their jobs, 76% of people reported it as their best day. [more]
Exploring why nurses eat their young
To those outside the nursing profession, it may be a bit frightening to hear the phrase, “nurses eat their young,” but to any nurse, this is just a standard expression meaning the bullying or harassment of a fellow colleague.
Theresa Brown, RN, delves deeper into the issue of why nurses bully one another, reminiscing about when she first started out as a nurse and experienced senior nurses lying about whether Brown had completed her work.
Brown references Kathleen Bartholomew, RN, MN, a nurse and consultant who literally wrote the book on the topic. In Ending Nurse-to-Nurse Hostility, Bartholomew addresses how and why back-stabbing, intimidation, and sabotage are all too common on some nursing floors, and provides strategies for how to stop these behaviors.
Brown notes that while many nurses eventually learn to handle the stress of nursing, others burn out and quit, and others fight back like “cornered animals.”
What are your thoughts on this? Have you encountered nurse-to-nurse hostility in your facility?
Texas nurse faces jail time after reporting physician
It is a nurse’s duty to report any physician practicing bad medicine, but to Anne Mitchell, a former administrative nurse at Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Kermit, TX, it has turned into a career and life-altering journey.
Mitchell faces trial on February 15 at a state courthouse for the “misuse of official information.” She has been charged with a third-degree felony and faces 10 years in prison after she anonymously reported a physician to the Texas Medical Board in April 2009. As an administrative nurse, Mitchell felt obligated to report Rolando G. Arafiles Jr., MD, to hospital officials to protect the safety of her patients
Initially, Mitchell and a fellow colleague raised red flags about Arafiles within their own hospital, but had to direct their concern to a state medical board for fear of their concerns going unnoticed. Mitchell and her colleague wrote a letter documenting six different areas “of concern,” and directed the medical board to specific patient files using only the file numbers, while protecting the patients’ names. [more]
