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

Something to absolutely not believe

If you needed proof that some people will do anything for views, look no further. A Florida nurse named Yazz Scott went live on TikTok during her medication pass at a nursing home — narrating the whole thing to her audience, dropping a patient's name on stream, telling viewers to 'relax' as she worked, and at one point opening a lidocaine patch with her teeth instead of using gloves. The livestream went viral, the screenshots are everywhere, and yes — she was suspended within days, with the Board of Nursing now investigating. Her job posting hit the internet before the lidocaine wore off. We didn't think 'do not livestream the med pass' needed to be on the orientation checklist, but here we are.

Something to make you furious

Buckle in for some math that will ruin your shift. Yale New Haven Health's CEO got a 22% raise this year, bringing his total to $6.2 million. Griffin Health's CEO got a 37% bump to a cool $1.02 million. Meanwhile, the unionized nurses and CNAs in Connecticut hospitals? Single-digit raises, period. State Senator Matt Lesser called the executive raises 'unconscionable' and 'obscene' — and that's before you even get to the part where these same hospitals are crying poor and asking lawmakers for more state aid for uncompensated care. The people pushing meds at 3am are getting 3% while the people pushing PowerPoints in the C-suite are getting 30%. Make it make sense.

Something to make us nurses proud

Sometimes the best nurse stories are the ones that play out far from a hospital. NPR aired a stranger-saves-stranger story this spring about a woman who, decades ago, walked into an ER barely conscious and was met with the kind of dismissal that should never happen. A nurse passing through saw her, recognized the signs of shock immediately, and refused to let anyone slow-walk her care. That nurse — whose name the patient never even caught — is the reason that woman is alive to tell the story today. It's a powerful reminder of what we do every shift, often without anyone ever knowing it happened. Keep being absolute units out there.

Something from a Subscriber

"It was 3am on my second night shift in a row when one of my drug-seeking frequent flyers asked me, with a completely straight face, if I had any 'spare morphine, just for the road.' I told him no, gave him his scheduled Tylenol, and watched him fake-cry until he heard the cafeteria cart roll by — at which point he made a miraculous recovery and asked for two ham sandwiches. The audacity of these patients keeps me young. Or maybe it's killing me. Either way, I love them." — Maria, Med-Surg RN, Ohio

We want to hear more from you! Submit your funniest or strangest or most heart warming nursing stories and we will pick one to share every week! This will be shared anonymously- so don’t be afraid to add some humor and flare and cursing, just like we love here!

Please submit all stories to: [email protected]

Please be conscious of HIPAA and omit any PPI or detail that may give hints to the people, hospital, and nurses involved in your story. We may slightly alter your story or change names for this reason. Your story may also be shortened and slightly altered to fit the size of the blog. Happy writing!!

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