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

Something to absolutely not believe

Picture your day off: the gym, some errands, maybe a nap. For Oklahoma City cardiac ICU nurse Jennifer Gentry, it turned into a double rescue. She spotted a man collapse at her gym with no detectable pulse and started CPR on the spot, bringing him back - and then, later that same day, cleared a choking baby's airway with back blows. Two strangers, two lives, one supposed "day off." If you ever needed proof that nurses never really clock out, here it is.

Something to make you furious

More than 4,000 nurses at Brigham and Women's Hospital walked out this month in the largest nurse strike in Massachusetts history, joined by hundreds of home-care clinicians. Their central grievance? A 0% across-the-board wage offer while they say there simply aren't enough nurses at the bedside to keep patients safe. And it's not isolated - nurse strikes have nearly quadrupled since 2017, with more than a dozen walkouts already this year over the same issue. When "safe staffing" becomes something nurses have to picket for, the system's priorities are backwards. We see you, Brigham nurses.

Something to make us nurses proud

Sometimes the shift finds you even when you're off the clock. In Revere, Massachusetts, an off-duty nurse rushed to a utility worker who had just taken a serious electric shock on the job and jumped in to render aid until first responders arrived. Bystanders froze; she didn't. Because she acted in those first critical minutes, a man who might have died at a worksite went home to his family instead. Proud doesn't quite cover it - this is simply who nurses are, badge or no badge.

Something from a Subscriber

"I've been a night-shift med-surg nurse for eleven years, and I've learned that the patients you dread can wreck you in the best way. I had a gruff old guy on my floor for three weeks who called his call light 'the complaint button' and never once said thank you. The night before discharge he buzzed me at 4 a.m. and I braced for a fight - instead he handed me a napkin with a wobbly drawing of a nurse wearing a cape and said, 'You people don't get told enough.' I found out later he was a widower who'd barely spoken to anyone in months before that admission. That napkin is taped inside my locker now, and on the shifts that try to break me, it reminds me exactly why I stayed."

- Rachel M., 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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