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nurse

It’s Just a Bad Shift: The Importance of Mindset

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In the past several weeks, I have transitioned into a new job, got scammed out of $1000, lost and found my “sold” wedding dress, messed up my personal website, and our house closing has gotten delayed. Reflecting on these many frustrations, I remind myself that these are so little mishaps in the grand scheme of things.

I remind myself that I am so thankful that my family is healthy, my country is not under war, Covid numbers are decreasing, I have a successful side job that I love, we are building our first new home, among so many other amazing events that life brings.

There are bad days at the hospital, but there are also bad days at home. It is normal for humans to doubt their abilities and question our life paths. It is so easy to live in life’s frustrations, rather than choosing to embrace the oxygen that we breathe at every moment.

It’s our attitudes and perspectives that determine our outlook on each situation. It is so important to magnify the good and simply experience the bad. Experiencing every emotion- the good, bad, and ugly, is part of a healthy life. The problem lies in adopting a negative viewpoint that determines all future reactions and paths for greater things.

Inpatient nursing is already a high stress environment, so why bring such negative emotions and perspectives to the work? A negative aura is felt by others around you. It truly is amazing how just thinking negative thoughts can affect an outward appearance.

We need to choose to accept healthier perspectives and view all sides of a situation. A bright person is just as recognizable as a negative Nancy.

Until next shift,

Shania

What do you want to be when you grow up?

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Growing up and even now, many ask themselves this question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”

After witnessing mental illness in my family and then struggling with my own eating disorder, my answer became “a nurse.” I chose to be a nurse because I wanted to influence others and educate others into creating a healthy lifestyle.

But just the answer of being a “nurse”, only goes so far. I then decide whether I prefer inpatient or outpatient, which unit, which patient population, short term goals, long term goals, etc.

I, ultimately, settled into an adult medical-surgical floor that also served pediatrics and Oncology. I began nursing school wanting to do pediatrics, then ER, then inpatient oncology. There was rarely a job available at the infusion clinic, so I remained on med-surg for 5 years and I enjoyed it.

I started as a student nurse tech, then a nurse extern, then a new grad nurse, then staff nurse, then charge nurse, and now a nurse Retentionist! My medical unit offered classes on chemotherapy administration and pediatric care at no cost to me. I was able to get a wide variety of training and experiences by remaining on the medical floor for as long as I did. I also had the opportunity to switch shifts and worked days, nights, and weekend nights.

Each different experience I had and extra step I took for myself, allowed me to be open for leadership opportunities. My transition into a charge nurse was not as difficult as I thought. And the creation of my new position as a Nurse Retentionist, allowed me to step fully into the role as a nurses’ advocate and leader.

Though the actual transition away from the bedside and into a 8-4:30 job was difficult mentally, the actual work came natural. I was able to utilize my strengths of communication, boldness, and listening to incorporate challenges at the bedside into solutions to present to nursing leadership.

I never went into nursing school thinking I wanted to go into leadership, but it was something that found me and I love it. Though I am not a typical bedside nurse, I am still a nurse. Instead of caring for patients, I advocate for the nurses that continue to care for them.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Until next time,

Shania

Developing a Nursing Identity: a Unique Proposition Statement

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What creates job satisfaction? What factors encourage employees to stay in the same workplace for years? Why are humans so hesitant about change culture, but ultimately seek different opportunities?

A unique proposition statement is a fancy word for catchphrase in the voiceover industry. While building my voiceover business, having a logo and UPS are important in the development of my brand and marketing. My UPS is “the cure for the common read.” Within that phrase, I was able to combine my two passions of nursing and acting into one. It also reveals my unique qualities that I can provide for voiceovers. Having a medical background helps me see medical narration from a nursing point of view, rather than studying how to communicate large words.

I realized that identifying what makes you stand out is also important in a professional nursing career. Because no one nurse is the same and there are so many things you can do with RN at the end of your name, it is important to develop your own nursing identity to help guide a successful nursing career. Dr. Sarah Gray with Sigma International speaks highly of this and details the importance of a professional brand with a mission and vision as necessary definitions to guide each nurse’s professional journey.

It is direction, mentorship, and openness to opportunities that encourage nurses to stay in the profession and at a certain facility. The facility must encourage professional growth and provide access to resources that promote successful career advancement.

Before starting nursing school, I told myself that I wanted to work in the ER. I quickly realized that the culture was not right for me, and I worked Med-Surg as a bedside nurse for nearly 5 years. Eventually, I noticed that I did not have as much compassion as I once did, and bedside skills were seeming kind of monotonous, so I began to think about how I wanted to further my nursing career. I connected with Dr. Sarah Gray who helped me to develop my own nursing mission and vision. It was then that I was able to identify what I loved most about nursing and combined those with my strengths to decide where I want to see myself in the next few years. Ultimately, I decided that that was not as a bedside nurse. I have a passion for leadership, mentorship, and nursing education. I was able to step into (and help create) my current position at the same facility as the first Nurse Retentionist- a creative position that focuses on nursing advocacy, empowerment, and professional career planning.

Without first recognizing what my nursing identity is, I would have done more trial and error positions to figure out where I would fit in the nursing profession. Change forces us out of our comfort zones, however positive change motivates lifelong learning.

My personal mission and vision:

Mission: As a voice for medicine and nursing professionals, I will lead others to think creatively in order to foster healthy relationships, a healthy self, and a healthy work environment.

Vision: Health care professionals will engage in meaningful work and have a passionate voice in the workplace.

Until next shift,

Shania

Being Grateful for the Little

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. “… The foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.” – Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Last night, I cared for a lady with covid who seemed very down when I first walked into the room. She remained on the phone with family as I tried to speak with her and give her her nighttime medications. I began to get frustrated because she was not acknowledging me as she continued to talk on the phone while I do my assessment. After she took her pills, I stepped out of the room and completed the rest of my med pass.

Throughout the night, I checked on her every couple of hours to make sure she didn’t need anything.

At the end of the shift, I rounded my last time and she asked me to bring her a piece of paper and to write down her care team for the night. I brought her the paper and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “you are my favorite. You are the first person that has come in here to check on me multiple times.”

That broke my heart for a couple of reasons.. First, from our first impression, I was not going above and beyond to make her happy since we did not develop a connection due to the initial lack of mutual communication. I felt almost guilty because I shrugged off her persona since she wasn’t wanting to talk with me when I was in the room. Second, Something so simple as to walk into the room to check on a patient should not be so unheard of. This patient so greatly appreciated the human interaction that she wanted to recognize us for simply caring for her.

These covid patients are locked in their rooms for days and unable to see family. Oftentimes, nurses are the only people they physically see while they are in the hospital and it is at those encounters that we can provide the encouragement they need to get better.

Don’t forget the impact that little acts of care and kindness can bring.

Until next shift,

Shania

All I want is a nap! The Importance of Sleep

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Sleep is a resource that is given to us to promote natural immunity and healing throughout our bodies. It doesn’t just refuel us for a new day, but it also cleanses our bodies from harmful chemicals, promotes healing, allows increased learning and retention, and relieves stress. Such a powerful resource often gets pressed as the busy-ness of life increases. It is common for Americans to be okay with 4-6 hours of sleep because other activities take priority. But, how much damage is actually being done by chronically depriving ourselves of sleep?

  • WHO recommends 8 hours of sleep for adults per night. A very small percentage of the population can healthily survive on 6 hours, but you are more likely to get struck by lightning than have this gene.*
  • 2/3 of the adult population fail to get adequate sleep, creating a sleep epidemic.*
  • A full 8 hours is important because your bodies immune system acts on multiple REM cycles.*
  • Inadequate sleep leads to multiple medical conditions including cancer, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, obesity, and so many more!*
  • In a study conducted in South Korea evaluating the effects of “shift work” or nightshift as we say in America, “65% of CCU nurses reported having trouble staying awake with 20% falling asleep at least once” and “inadequate sleep mimics a BAC of 0.5%- 1.0%” (Min, A. et. al, 2020).
  • Dr. Matthew Walker also explains that “after remaining awake for over 15 hours, you are as impaired as a person with a BAC of 0.08%, the legal drinking limit.”

These are just some statistics regarding the importance of sleep hygiene. After reading Matthew Walker’s, Why We Sleep, as well as, conducting my own sleep research, I always prioritize sleep and ensure I get my 8 hours. Prevention over treatment!!

Until next shift,

Shania

References:

Min, A., Hong, H. C., Son, S., & Lee, T. H. (2021). Alertness during working hours among eight‐hour rotating‐shift nurses: An observational study. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 00, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12743–

*Walker, M. P. (2018). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Great Resignation: Nurse PTSD

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They say cardiovascular disease is the “silent killer”, but did you know that many nurses post Covid are suffering from the silent killer of PTSD?

During the peak of Covid, frontline staff were plunged into a plethora of uncertainty. No one knew what Covid was, how it effected the body, what the disease process was, what type of isolation was appropriate, etc. Then came concerns over PPE supply, vaccination status, and most recently, questionable CDC guidance. Nurses lived in a constant fight or flight response as they obsessively watched O2 monitors and prayed for an uneventful shift. The Delta variant proved to be brutal and rampant as more patients were intubated at bedside and transferred to the ICU than many of us saw in our whole nursing careers combined. These patients were so sick and everyone was so critical that nursing had to prioritize patients who were originally healthy and able-bodied, full codes, in order to preserve respiratory equipment as much as possible.

Crisis protocols were in place and meant that we reused single-use PPE and placed a 6L nasal cannula plus a nonrebreather on a patient because we didn’t have enough high flow cannulas. Allow these things to continue for nearly 2 years and now dealing with the third Covid variant, means that nurses are tired and burnt out.

Many nurses are leaving to travel and make more money for the same job duties, some are leaving the bedside and stepping into less stressful job positions, and others are retiring or even just leaving the profession for good.

The struggle we face as a facility and as a nation is critical staffing shortages. Patients will never stop flooding the ER, but what happens when we have no healthcare professionals to properly care for all of these people? More money and incentives are only temporary. A long-term solution involves staff retention and recruitment coupled with staff engagement and empowerment.

Until next shift,

Shania

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615-856-8181
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