Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Why NursesTakeDC 2018? Theresa Ward Puckett, @ExcuseSickNurses, Ohio Nurse Advocates

Why NursesTakeDC 2018? Theresa Ward Puckett, @ExcuseSickNurses, Ohio Nurse Advocates
https://www.facebook.com/groups/918648174982947/

        I’ve been a nurse for over 18 years and a nurse educator for over 15 years. During my career, my enthusiasm and enjoyment of the profession has ebbed and flowed. When I first started teaching, I couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to be a nurse. Now, I worry that not enough nurses will be attracted to or retained in the profession. I look at my bright, motivated undergraduate students and wonder if they really know what they’re up against as they launch into their first job (they don’t). I also wonder if they will care about the profession and the patients enough to continue the fight for workplace safety.

        This year has been the most trying year of my career. I contracted the flu around the holidays and was sick for three weeks. During this time, I was fired from a PRN job that I loved because I missed three shifts. Even though I had doctor’s notes covering the days of my absence, I was fired per the hospital’s “No Fault” attendance policy. The hospital management that I had worked so hard to please texted me the news of my firing. I felt betrayed and like a fool for working extra shifts and leaving my family to cover holiday shifts that were above and beyond my obligation as a PRN nurse. I stood by them in their time of need, but they didn’t stand by me in mine.

        The second slap in the face came from co-workers at that same job. These were people who I considered my “work family”. We socialized outside of work and celebrated each other’s special days. Several of them had just attended my wedding four months prior to the firing. A few months after my firing, I had only heard from one person. Losing their support because I was fired when sick felt like a betrayal. Aren’t nurses supposed to stand together in times of need?

         The final event that rocked my sense of normalcy, security, and peer acceptance was being told that I was not invited back to teach at Kent State University next fall. The university and the hospital from which I was fired have close clinical ties. I’ll never forget the look of disgust thrown my way by the Dean of nursing after my story broke on CNN. Why wasn’t I being congratulated for speaking up?

        In walks Andrew Lopez, Show Me Your Stethoscope, and Nurses Take DC. When I learned about Nurses Take DC, I hoped that attending the event would bring me in contact with people who were like-minded and not embarrassed for me for what I did. I knew that I would be surrounded by people who are concerned about workplace issues that are ultimately patient safety issues, such as safe staffing and workplace violence, but would they see my issue as being just as important of a safety issue?

        Nurse Take DC. What did the experience mean to me? It meant being accepted. It meant having nurses who recognized me approach me with a thank you. Above all, it was validating. It validated that I did the right thing. It validated that my speaking out did not ruin my career, but took my career in a different, more important direction. It gave me hope that together, we can make changes. Below is a photo of myself standing at the Nurses Take DC rally. See all of those people standing with me? They are my new nursing community. They don’t just punch in and out of their shift and complain in the locker room. They do. They act. I couldn’t be more excited to be on this journey of patient safety together.

   



NursesTakeDC 2018 details here:
https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html



Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive 
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Emily Cardwell, MSN, RN, @kynurse4change #NursesTakeDC #NurseUp #NursesUnite #NationofNurses

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Emily Cardwell, MSN, RN, @kynurse4change

I’d say that “NursesTakeDC not just for the nurses of today, but for the day we will be patients. We are on the front line and see the shortcomings from lost due to under staffing, but it is the patients who suffer the most immediate ramifications. Those are friends, family, and eventually, each and every one of us.” Is that what you meant?

I often think the single biggest mistake nurses make is forgetting that they too will need the care they provide others, and not acting aggressively to force change to protect patients and staff until they fall victim to the understaffed system that has put nursing care on the chopping block.

It bothers me to see such wonderful, empathetic, educated professionals not consider what they would do if it were them in the bed tomorrow. Would they go to their own facility? Or would they fear for their safety? If the answer is the latter, then they need to advocate now.

I’ve been sick for years, and I know I won’t live long enough to see a total overhaul of healthcare. But I’d love to see nurses take back power over healthcare.


Emily Cardwell, MSN, RN @kynurse4change

NursesTakeDC 2018 details here:
https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html






Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com


Monday, March 26, 2018

Why NursesTakeDC 2018? Shelly Fink, RN #NursesTakeDC #NurseUp #NursesUnite #NationofNurses

Why NursesTakeDC 2018? Shelly Fink, RN

Nursing friends!!

I just booked my hotel room for this event.  If anyone is able to attend, or is interested, please check out the event page.  
https://www.facebook.com/events/695907173929749/?ti=as

Professionally, safe staffing ratios has not effected me.  I currently work with an amazing team model that flows well.  In my critical care years, it was always 1:2, sometimes 1:1.  But many of my colleagues who work other facilities struggle with this issue daily.  

For every patient added on to a nurses assignment, the risks of one of them dying goes up exponentially.  I don't rally as a nurse to make my job better, personally my job rocks!  I rally because I'm a daughter, a mother, a wife, a friend, and sometimes a patient, who understands why this is so important.  

This is not a partisan rally, not a Republican vs Democrat thing. This is standing up for our profession and our patients to all who will listen.  

Consider joining me.  Get involved!




NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html





Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Janet Michaelis RN, @jgmichaelis #NursesUnite #NurseUp


Why #NursesTakeDC, Janet Michaelis RN?

An obvious fact: CARING THOROUGHLY FOR PATIENTS TAKES TIME, yet bedside nurses are too often saddled with impossible workloads we're expected to perform to perfection, while being pushed to push the patients out ASAP. So-called “quality standards” reward "throughput" over thoroughness, demeaning and endangering staff and patients alike.

Meanwhile legacy professional  organizations, like the ANA, have spent decades equivocating about the subject of mandatory staffing, allowing cruel and dangerous  practices to persist and fester like chronic wounds. 

Instead of listening to professional lobbyists, it’s time that legislators hear from us directly for a change!

NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html





Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com

Monday, March 5, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Angela Kokopelytio, BS(N), RN, Silent No More Foundation, @silentnomorefnd


Why "#NursesTakeDC"? Because I have had the experience of knowing that just one more nurse could have been the difference between life and death for a patient. The level of fear that goes through a nurse when they know how fragile that situation is is horrible. We should never be put in this position. A patient needs more and better than that. 

#NursesTakeDC because we've trusted and hoped for our employers to do the right thing, and they've intentionally gotten it wrong, erroneously believing this saves money. 

#NursesTakeDC because we should never be faced with these terrifying situations. Patients shouldn't die because we are chronically short staffed.

One of the number one causes of healthcare worker directed violence is long wait times. A person becomes frustrated, then escalates to the point of physically assaulting staff. The longer the assault is able to continue, the worse the damage is. 

#NursesTakeDC because we've been silent about this since the dawn of time. The overwhelming majority of healthcare workers have experienced healthcare workplace violence. We are the most likely of any industry to be assaulted. 

#NursesTakeDC because we didn't take these jobs expecting to be assaulted. 

#NursesTakeDC because just one more nurse could mean the difference between life and death in situations of healthcare workplace violence. 

#NursesTakeDC because if we are assaulted, that assault will continue until someone else comes to help. 

#NursesTakeDC because we will be #SilentNoMore about the assaults we receive when we lack support to prevent them.

#NursesTakeDC because we want to safely return home after our shifts, without harming our patients from being stretched too thinly. #SilentNoMore

NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html


Angela at the Illinois Show Me Your Stethoscope, #STAMP rally.


Saturday, February 17, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Jose Angel Torres, NP, RN @TheKnittedBrow #NurseUp #NationofNurses


(1) Nurses Take DC as members of a time-honored profession and patient advocates responsible to care for the sick, promote health, prevent illness and injury and maintain levels of health for others.

(2) Nurses Take DC because it is our responsibility and NO one else's to cultivate our profession and steer it in the right direction while placing patients' reasonable concerns ahead of our personal convenience, pleasure, profit, and safety without bias, stereotype or compromising the contributions of other healthcare workers.

(3) Nurses Take DC because healthcare is a time-honored profession genuinely dedicated to helping others and OBLIGATED with saving lives and stomping out disease. Despite that heritage and DUTY healthcare has been cheapened, by any means necessary and at the COST and LOSS of so much, into just another customer-driven service.

(4) Nurses Take DC because healthcare is like no other industry, NONE! and…
-the only industry with patients
-the only industry with OUR waiting room
-the only industry in which services are sought during some of the worse moments of our lives and during inconvenient times, for uncertain, unpredictable and volatile choices in places that are unknown, unpleasant and unforgiving
-the only industry where regardless of disposable income or time services are sought after and rendered
-the only industry whose workers maintain the public's confidence year after year as the public has recognizes us as the most honest profession and with the greatest ethical standard of any industry
-most notable, healthcare is the only industry where workers go to battle for every patient and if those patients succumbs-we cry for them as well.

(5) Nurses Take DC because picking your battles is a position of convenience, as anyone who has fought any battle will tell you how inconvenient that is and it is that inconvenience and sacrifice which gives worth to the battle.

(6) Nurses Take DC because "[t]he difference between a moment and a movement is SACRIFICE!" [Joe Madison]

(7) Nurses Take DC because the time for small thinking and simply taking part is LONG past. To take healthcare back and MAKE HEALTHCARE GREAT AGAIN it is time to take OVER! ANYTHING short of that is nibbling at the edges of the status quo that has been going on in healthcare for 30+ years and accomplished NOTHING!

(8) Nurses Take DC because "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change" [Robert F. Kennedy].

NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html



Jose Angel Torres at #NursesTakeDC 2017




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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Debbie Hickman, Travel ICU RN, 2017 Rally Speaker #NurseUp #NationofNurses

YOUR JOB ISN’T SAFE. YOUR PATIENTS AREN’T SAFE
What is it going to take for us all to band together...
stand up together...
Make these changes happen!

How would you feel if your patient died and you could have prevented it?
Are you working in an environment that is detrimental to patients? Where they aren’t receiving the proper care? Where the care is bare minimum? Do you leave work feeling like you failed your patients and didn’t give them the care they deserve?

Don’t wait for someone else to stand up or speak out. Let me say that again. Don’t wait for someone else to do what you know needs to be done.

This must stop now. We need to stand together and say No More! We have power and strength in numbers. Harm comes to patients everyday from understaffing, too high acuity, too few inexperienced nurses and nurses working that are burned out from years of being overworked.

Your patients are your responsibility. They trust in you and are counting on you to take care of them. We are the most trusted profession for a reason! Be proactive. Stand up for your patients (present and future). 

If your patient dies on your watch and you could have done something preemptively to stop it and you didn’t. Can you live with that?

Stop letting fear hold you back.
Debbie Hickman, Travel ICU RN


NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html



Debbie Speaking & #NursesTakeDC 2017




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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com



Sunday, February 11, 2018

Why NursesTakeDC 2018? Charlene Harrod-Owuamana, LPN, HBOT, Rally Speaker #NursesUnite #NationofNurses #NurseUp


My "Why" if not, DC, then where?  Safe patient care is my concern; families and love ones depend on me, as well as I depend on my knowledge.  I took the Nursing Oath - to care for my patients.  

My “Why” if not, DC then where?  Let take it to “THE LAW MAKERS.”  We must advocate harder for ourselves; as we advocate for those we care for and depend on your loving hands...

NursesTakeDC 2018 details here:
https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html


More quotes needed, please contact us to submit, info@nursefriendly.com or IM Andrew Lopez, RN on Facebook.



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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Jeannette Hand, RN-BC @JHandRN #NationofNurses #NursesUnite #NurseUp


Why do I participate in #NursesTakeDC?  I do it for my patients!  I work in long term care and rehab where patient loads depending on shift and facility can be as many as 60 patients for one nurse!  This is beyond stupendous!  

While I work day shift, and am not burdened with that many patients, I need to support those nurses that do.  On day shift, I have had 20+ patients.  Actually, when I worked solely long term care, I was expected to care for 30 patients!  

Nurses in hospitals and Nursing homes need to have mandated a  maximum number of patients they can care for.  It is a matter of patient safety and quite frankly a matter of patient dignity!  That is why I have participated and will continue to participate in #NursesTakeDC!


NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: 
https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html




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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Why #NursesTakeDC 2018? Keith Carlson, RN, BSN, NC-BC @nursekeith, #NurseUp #NursesUnite

Why Nurses Take DC? As a career coach for nurses, I have my ear to the rails of the nursing profession and the healthcare system at large. There are many pressures and challenges facing 21st-century nursing professionals, and my personal mission is to elevate the profession and provide nurses with the inspiration, self-confidence, and knowledge they need to succeed in a shifting healthcare landscape.

I accept every opportunity to address nurses en masse or individually so that I can offer wisdom that will keep them moving forward in their lives and careers. If we can motivate nurses to be politically active and aware of the forces impacting their careers and their workplaces, we can increase the power of our individual and collective voices.

Nurses are the most trusted professionals in the United States, and we can leverage that trust in terms of exerting our influence on the legislative agenda around the country and in Washington, DC.

NursesTakeDC 2018 details here: 
https://4nursing.blogspot.com/2018/01/nursestakedc-safe-staffing-rally-april.html



Keith Carlson is a holistic career coach for nurses, award-winning nurse blogger, writer, podcaster, speaker, author, and popular career columnist. With two decades of nursing experience, Keith deeply understands the issues faced by 21st-century nurses. Keith’s two podcasts, RNFM Radio and The Nurse Keith Show, offer inspiration and practical support to nurses seeking to create meaningful, satisfying lives and careers. Keith’s message of savvy career management and professional satisfaction reaches tens of thousands of nurses worldwide. Keith can be found on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram---as well as at NurseKeith.com


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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly National Directories
38 Tattersall Drive
West Deptford, New Jersey 08051
856-415-9617, Fax: 856-415-9618, info@nursefriendly.com, @nursefriendly
http://www.nursefriendly.com