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NurseTwain

“Your discharge is not priority”..

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“Due to short staffing, we are closing early. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

“Please expect longer than usual wait times due to short staffing..”

“Now hiring. $15/hr starting pay.”

These signs and statements look all too familiar within today’s society. The nursing shortage has been ongoing for years and only getting worse. Short staffing at grocery stores or restaurants cause frustration and inconvenience. However, short staffing in healthcare is deadly and only increases the shortage as healthcare workers are overworked and burnt out.

It is really hard to be the nurse that we signed up to be…

  • When we can’t talk to our patients like we would like to and truly listen to them without having 1000 other urgent tasks to complete
  • When we don’t have time to brush our patient’s hair or give them a shower
  • When we don’t catch a dangerous trend in labs or vital signs because we are too busy to think
  • When we make a simple medication error because our phone keeps ringing or call lights are nonstop
  • When we don’t have the compassion we did as a new nurse..

As a nurse, we pledge an oath to do no harm, but it is very difficult when we do not have the resources we need to be successful and advocate for our patients as we should.

What doesn’t make sense either, is that administration views short staffing as doable, giving more and more patients to staff because they have to. But, are these overworked staff receiving additional pay? Most of us are not. The healthcare system does not operate on the usual economical supply and demand system. As demand rises, our pay does not increase.

From a patient standpoint, outcomes and satisfaction suffers. Healthcare worker violence rises and staffing is a major factor. Nurses must prioritize care, especially when having high-acuity loads and no help.

  • We must treat a low blood pressure before performing wound care.
  • We have to prevent a patient from falling before administering your home medication on your own schedule.
  • We will attend to a code before patient teaching.
  • We have to administer scheduled medications and/or pain medications, before printing discharge instructions.

Your discharge is not priority. We are literally saving lives and patients need to realize that a hospital is not a hotel.

I guarantee you, nurses are not just sitting at the station playing cards, drinking tea, or any other outrageous assumption made by the media. We are trying…

Until next shift,

Shania

The Meaning of a Pin

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Shania Lynn The Cure For The Common Read Photo As a student nurse, the one day that you look forward to is even of greater significance than college graduation.. nursing pinning. The nurse’s pin dates back to the early Maltese cross in which a pin was worn meaning a service of Christianity. The servants would care for others with communicable illnesses. Since then, the meaning of the pin has transformed throughout different cultures and programs. Florence Nightingale, the creator of the first structured program for nurses, eventually adopted the pin as a symbol of knowledge, servitude, and compassion for the vulnerable. Today, all nursing programs (and other non-nursing programs) culminate with the ceremony of pinning.

As a practicing RN, we receive different pins to put on our badge. These include acknowledgements such as various awards, employee of the month, degrees, and years of service, among others.

Earlier this month, I received my 5 years of service pin. It feels like I have been a nurse for so much longer, while also feeling like just yesterday I spoke at my own nursing pinning ceremony. In 5 years of graduating with my ASN, I completed a BSN, got trained in chemotherapy and Pediatrics, became certified in Medical-Surgical Nursing and ACLS, worked as a Charge Nurse on weekends and nights during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and now have the greatest honor of teaching last semester nursing students at a community college.

While I receive my 5-year pin, I have the honor of providing the nursing pin to all of my students. And in reminiscence of my own pinning, I recite the nurse’s prayer:

Give us strength and wisdom when others need our touch

A soothing word to speak to us, our hearts yearn for so much

Give us joy and laughter to lift a weary soul

Pour in us compassion to make the broken whole

Give us gentle, healing hands for those placed in our care

A blessing to those who need us, this is our Nurse’s prayer

Until next shift,

Shania

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2694101/#:~:text=The%20nursing%20pin%20is%20a,symbol%20of%20service%20to%20Christianity.

Building a Life you Want

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Build a life you want and save for it. This is a FIRE concept in which you can still prepare to be Financially Independent and Retire Early, while also living a life that you desire.

As nurses, we learn to prioritize. We start our day prioritizing as we choose which patient to see first. We prioritize med passes, delegation, admissions, discharges, and every MD order for each patient that we have in our care.

But, we often do not prioritize ourselves. Some of us go with the flow. Some stay in current jobs for years because it is comfortable or familiar. Others go about their daily routines and only imagine pursuing hobbies or passions and never act on them.

I made a difficult decision to leave a job that I helped create for myself because it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I came home frustrated every day for the 6 months I was trying to make it work. I started to realize that the position may not have been a good fit for my strengths. Sitting at a desk all day waiting on the decisions of others was just not a good fit for a Type A personality, who is used to working an active 12-hr bedside nursing shift. I knew I had to make a change for my mental health, especially considering I did not believe the position would improve for my liking. With change, comes difficult conversations.

Intellectually, I knew that for my mental well-being, I had to leave my newly acquired job. I received an opportunity to teach. A position I thought of years before as I was always more textbook smart than I ever was clinically. I took the chance and this is the best career I have ever been in as an RN. I LOVE disease processes. I LOVE encouraging others. I LOVE speaking. All of my loves and strengths seem to be combined into one position that found me in a time I was seriously struggling. All of these loves, plus a schedule that works for family, hobbies, and voiceover 🙂

I would never have found my place as a nurse if I did not listen to myself or take myself as priority. Now, I am looking forward to furthering my education. I am basing my specific program and university off of what will work with my priorities in life: teaching, voiceover, fitness, and family/friends. Rather than sacrificing any of these loves, I will find a program that fits into my current way of living because that is making myself a priority.

Build a life that you want and save for it.

Until next shift,

Shania

It’s okay to take up space

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Do you ever say sorry out of habit? “I’m sorry for..”

Making it into the grocery line first

Being in the med room as another nurse walks in

Filing a valid complaint

Asking for a favor

Waking up a doctor for a patient need/concern

I have a habit of apologizing for things that 1.) are not my fault 2.) unintentionally inconveniencing others, 3.) allowing others needs to be greater than my own. In other words, I say “I’m sorry” for things that those words are not even intended for. The word “sorry” stems from a word meaning sorrow or sorrowful. Do I feel sorrow for any of the above scenarios? Of course, not.

While out wedding dress shopping for my sister, my sister was constantly apologizing for bringing more dresses into the dressing room or needing a different size, etc. Finally, the sales associate said, “you need to stop saying, ‘I’m sorry’. I told myself that I need to stop saying that because I am allowed to take up space.”

I am allowed to take up space. We should never let ourselves feel less than others. Apologizing for being a customer doesn’t even make sense! Also, we have learned over the years that empathy is way more affective than sympathy which the words ‘I’m sorry” go with. So, allow yourself to take up space in this world like the billions of other humans that walk the earth.

Until next shift,

Shania

Retention, Recruitment, Resilience.. Oh, My!

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These three words are dominating the media when it comes to nursing. Facilities attempt to retain their current staff while also trying to combat the ever-increasing staffing shortage by recruiting new hires. Staff are also reminded and educated on ways to be resilient and how to prevent burnout.

Unfortunately in America, even nonprofit hospitals have to be run like a business. Our bedside nurses are the number one asset to a successful hospital as they care for the income drivers.. the patients. Bedside nursing is a physically and emotionally demanding job that wears on even the best of nurses. I left the bedside for these reasons and also to follow my career path of leadership and education. By accepting my position into Nursing Professional Development, I see the leadership perspective of how to run a hospital.

Yes, staffing is a problem. Yes, nurses are not getting paid enough. Yes, there are more and more demands placed on nursing without incentives or relief. But, one of the main issues regarding increasing nursing staff is actually getting additional nurses into the door. The time to hire is a challenge for many organizations. This can be related to slow HR processes (they are short-staffed, too) and/or the amount of time it takes to train a nurse for the assigned unit. Even an experienced nurse can take several weeks to get acclimated to a facilities’ policies and procedures. Certain positions, such as the OR and Critical Care, are noted to be some of most challenging positions to fill due to the scope and specialty.

According to the 2022 NSI report, “on average, it takes 87 days (3 months) to recruit an experienced RN.” During this period, more staff may be leaving, additional positions, and the cycle continues. As the need increases, the vacancy rates continue to increase, and bedside nurses leave due to thin staffing, hospitals cannot keep up with the demand.

I write this mainly to draw attention to our strained and flawed healthcare system. Pay incentives and large recruitment bonuses are only temporary solutions. Long-term solutions can only be successful if we can recruit, retain, and promote resilience within our organizations. Be sure to listen to the staff, be transparent, suit their needs, and acknowledge the work that each individual contributes.

Until next shift,

Shania

Click to access NSI_National_Health_Care_Retention_Report.pdf

Living as an Oxymoron

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Do you ever get a little bit tired of life? Like you’re not really happy, but you don’t wanna die?

“Having anxiety and depression is like feeling tired and scared at the same time. It’s the fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It’s feeling everything at once, then feeling paralyzingly numb.”

As Em Beihold in her song “Numb Little Bug” and Rich Wilkerson Jr. brings to life, mental health matters. Did you know that female nurses are 70% more likely to die by suicide than female doctors, and nurses, in general, have higher rates of suicide than physicians and even the public (WebMD)?

We screen patients for suicidal and homicidal ideation on admission with questionnaires like the Columbia- Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS).. “Do you ever fall asleep and hope to not wake up?”

“Have you ever had any thoughts of killing yourself?”

“Have you ever planned to end your life?”

Some patients laugh at these questions or make jokes about living with their spouse, however, more increasingly patients rate positive on these scales and require closer surveillance. The importance of checking in with our co workers also cannot go unnoticed. Working a stressful job on top of having anxiety, depression, or other mental health condition creates a difficult shift in itself. As patients are presenting with higher levels of aggression and/or are increasingly sicker, the job becomes more taxing. The struggle with mental health is that it is not often seen, unless carefully observed.

Taking time to fully listen to others, honestly answer “How are you?”, and having a healthy level of self-awareness is crucial to promote a healthy mindset.

Knowing that violence, depression, and anxiety are not “just part of the job,” allows solutions to be made. Speak up and speak out for yourself and others’ wellbeing. I am lucky to only have anxiety, rather than the anxiety-depression duo. Every day I take my pill and work on myself to create a life worth living.

If you ever need someone to talk to (even if we have never met), send me a message.

Until next shift,

Shania

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615-856-8181
shania@shanialynnvo.com