Amanda Dean is a palliative care nurse.
I walked onto my small unit a few minutes before 7 a.m., nurses huddled around one elderly gentleman. A cacophony of alarm bells and call lights went unanswered as the unit’s three overnight staff members attempted to keep him in bed. He voiced his disagreement loudly while climbing over the rails meant to protect his safety. Though he was strong, he was unsteady. Exasperated, the night nurse showed me her …
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Workplace violence against nurses: a crisis of systemic failure
We ran as fast as we could. I glanced up occasionally at the nurse straddling my patient, her blonde waves obscuring her face as she furiously attempted to restart a non-beating heart. We pushed the hospital bed down hallways and around corners, narrowly missing people-filled stretchers lining the Emergency Department. I stood in the back while the experts took over. If she was ready to leave this world, I wanted …
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A nurse’s view on the broken health care system
I sat on a cylindrical stool, eyes bleary from the early hour. Navy scrubs freshly pressed, my nursing school patch tacked to my left shoulder. Would anyone notice I used hot glue and whipstitches?
I remember the sound my clipboard made as I attached a fresh piece of paper. The whoosh was faint and mimicked the flip-flap of wings attached to butterflies whirring around in my belly. I waited eagerly for …
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Nurses, stop eating your young: a call for change
Recently a measure was proposed to allow APRNs full practice authority in the VA health care system. With this measure, the embattled VA hopes to help optimize access to health care for our veterans. A measure to help with the firestorm of problems we witnessed unravel at the Phoenix VA system two years ago. Sounds great, right?
Nothing is ever that simple in American medicine. The professional organizations are, once again, …
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Who cares about our turf wars? Patients don’t.
