The Handoff - Issue #3

Hello fellow Nurse, this is your weekly handoff. Some quick and dirty nursing news that’s worth sharing. Enjoy!

Something I've been listening to

Two Humerus Nurses Podcast. If you are a bedside nurse who has forgotten what you used to love about it you need to listen to this episode. Nurses Kelly and Alishia are sweet, funny and completely relatable. Listening to this episode will remind you how vital bedside nursing is and how rewarding it can be. Don’t get me wrong - we all know it's hard AF, but there are invaluable lessons to be learned and fun to be had. If nothing else, it’s nice to hear other nurses who are also “used to the shit hitting the fan and being splattered with it” 

Something I've been thinking about

 The Royal College of Nursing is holding the largest strike in the history of nursing. Currently the nurses of the United Kingdom are at a stand still with the government sticking to a 4.3% pay increase and the nursing unions demanding a 19% raise. When you factor in inflation most “raises” that governments are providing are not accounting for this discrepancy and nurses are becoming more and more underpaid each year. An estimated 100,000 nurses across Britain are striking for better working conditions, and better care for patients. Governments around the world continually claim they can’t afford to pay higher wages to nurses but then seem to have no problem giving themselves raises. It will be interesting to follow this story, as I feel it will set a precedent for bargaining around the globe. What do you guys think?

Something to talk about next shift

Four nurses at Atlanta hospital were fired last week after a tik tok they made went viral. Did you see the video? It has since been taken down but it was a quick montage of nurses at the nursing station talking about their “icks”, which included demanding family members, questions about paternity tests, and other general annoyances. While I think making a video and posting it to social media is a poor judgement call, let me tell you - my list of “icks” would take longer than a one minute tik tok. It is so hard to be a nurse, especially during these crazy times. While I agree that the video was unprofessional on a lot of levels, I have sympathy for these burned out nurses looking for a creative outlet to blow off steam. These “icks” should be fairly benign patient request/comments, but the fact that these nurses feel so overwhelmed by them should tell you that nurses are not coping. What do you think? Let me know! Always love to hear others' opinions, especially if they are different from mine.

If you liked this newsletter please share with your friends. Which bullet is your favorite? What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Email me and let me know.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Can’t wait to show you what I find for next week's newsletter.