These annual awards spotlight the best and worst of media for nursing We are now accepting nominations for the Truth About Nursing awards, which recognize the most notable – best and worst…
Category: ACTION
Set up to fail
NPR on RaDonda Vaught National Public Radio has run fairly good items about Tennessee nurse RaDonda Vaught, who was recently convicted of a homicide charge in the accidental death of a patient….
Message from RaDonda Vaught
RaDonda Vaught provides guidance on those offering letters of support
A meeting with Epic
Our January 2022 discussion with the leading charting software maker focused on ways to improve nursing care
Truth About Nursing director Sandy Summers and colleagues recently met with representatives of Epic. They discussed how charting software might be improved to reduce the burden on nurses and allow them to give more and better patient care.
Could charting software be improved?
We started meeting with Epic in January 2022 – please weigh in!
Essential workers
Nurse added to Biden-Harris Covid-19 task force In late November 2020, the Biden-Harris transition team added a nurse to its Covid advisory board, after campaigns by the Truth About Nursing and others….
Task force multipliers
On November 22, 2020, the Truth About Nursing sent the Covid task force a message with a diverse list of nurses. The list included direct care nurses, as well as nurses who are expert in infection control, health disparities, and other public health disciplines. We hope our message will increase understanding of nursing. While we can’t guarantee nurses will be added to the task force, we are hopeful, and we thank you for your recommendations!
The Truth About Nursing’s letter to the Biden-Harris Covid-19 advisory panel
November 22, 2020 Thank you for your openness to representation of nurses on the Biden-Harris coronavirus advisory panel. Nurses deliver most skilled health care and have valuable insight into what patients and…
Which nurses would be the best fit for the Biden-Harris Covid-19 advisory panel?
November 12, 2020 — Thank you to the many hundreds of people who have joined our letter-writing campaign and urged President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris to add nurses to their Covid-19 task force. One of the current advisory panel members got in touch with us yesterday to let us know our concerns have been heard and they are eager to put forward our suggestions for the best nurse candidates for the panel.
The incoming Administration’s new Covid-19 task force excludes nurses
November 11, 2020 — President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris have now announced the names of the 13 members of their new Covid-19 task force. The panel is mostly physicians and includes no nurses. But nurses provide the vast majority of the skilled care that Covid-19 patients receive, and they have deep understanding of how the crisis is playing out on the ground. Nurses also have diverse public health and policy expertise, including in the fields of infection control, health disparities, and community health. Nurses know and do a great deal that physicians do not. So with nurses, the panel will be far more effective. Please join us in urging that nurses be added!
PSYCHOTHERAPY
In October 2020 VICE reported that after a Korean health union complained, YG Entertainment agreed to remove several images in the video for BLACKPINK’s “Lovesick Girls” in which group member Jennie had appeared in a quasi-naughty nurse outfit. The images could have been worse, but as the union rightly noted, sexual abuse remains a serious problem for modern nurses.
Paging Dr. Zenk
In July 2020 the National Institutes of Health announced that Shannon Zenk, RN, PhD, would assume the role of director of the National Institute of Nursing Research in fall 2020. Since August 2019, NINR has been without a nurse director, with that role being filled on an interim basis by a dentist and then a biologist. Last year the Truth, joined by many nurses, urged NIH to appoint a nurse as interim director. In any case, we congratulate Dr. Zenk on her appointment.
She’s here
Creator Ryan Murphy describes the new show, about the iconic battle-axe nurse from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as “an imagining of how this monster was created.” We have long feared the series will reinforce the harmful stereotyping of the original, which linked female nursing authority with malevolence. Will Ratched give viewers a sense that nurses are anything more than disturbed clinical abusers?
“Patients die because nurses are too busy”
Press items report deadly nursing shortage on both sides of the Atlantic A study of European hospitals shows that missed care due to nurse understaffing has increased death rates, according to an…
Physical taxation without representation
New York City settles benefits case about whether nursing is “physically taxing” The New York Daily News reported that the City had agreed to pay almost $21 million to settle claims that…
Truth denounces racism
The Code of Ethics calls nurses to action The Truth About Nursing denounces the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the many other persons of color who have died as a…
We are not heroes
An April 2020 CBS News piece reported that National Nurses United had held a protest in front of the White House about the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE). The union argues that the CDC has weakened its standards for PPE, that OSHA has likewise failed to act, and that Congress and the White House have not mandated the production of enough PPE or testing supplies.
Give nurses secretaries
The key to saving more Covid-19 patients? Offload the clerical work. In the Covid-19 crisis, much has been said about the need for equipment like ventilators and PPE. But we also have…
Evolving standards of decency
Huffington Post and Hill items portray the ANA as a policy force Recipient of a Best Public Health Advocacy by Nurses 2010-2019 Award The Huffington Post reported that the American Nurses Association had decided to oppose not…
PPEmergency
March 21, 2020 – Please sign our petition asking top U.S. federal officials to protect vital health care workers in the midst of the covid-19 outbreak. We are urging federal leaders to…