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

Something to absolutely not believe

A Florida man just got arrested for posing as a nurse — for the second time. Joseph Kinney, 56, had his license revoked back in 2022, but allegedly kept right on working, spending nearly two months at a Lake Mary rehab facility under someone else’s name and license. How did he finally get caught? A police sergeant recognized him from a news story about his FIRST fake-nurse arrest — and then realized he had been the one caring for her own relative at that very facility. Did I mention he was already on probation with a court-ordered condition to stay out of healthcare entirely? We sweat through nursing school, boards, and endless CEUs, and this man’s entire credential was apparently just confidence.

Something to make you furious

More than 140 nurses and healthcare workers lined the sidewalk outside Mercy Hospital Downtown in Bakersfield this month to protest Dignity Health cutting 137 positions across two California hospitals — 57 of them in Kern County — effective August 3. The pink slips hit LVNs, unit secretaries, and support staff, which means the nurses left behind absorb the med passes, the phones, and everything else on top of their own patient loads. As one labor and delivery nurse put it: “they’re taking away our extra help and we need it to do our jobs safely.” Parent company Common Spirit says the cuts are part of a financial turnaround after more than $1 billion in losses — because the turnaround always seems to start at the bedside and never in the C-suite. And this comes just weeks after the same system closed Bakersfield Memorial’s burn unit, leaving Kern County without specialized burn care.

Something to make us nurses proud

When gunfire erupted after a Fourth of July fireworks show in Westerville, Ohio, off-duty RN Steffany Nesteroff ran toward the shots, not away from them. She crossed a dark parking lot to reach a man who had been shot eight times, announced herself as a nurse, and used her husband’s shirt to hold pressure on the wounds until medics arrived. No gloves, no equipment, no backup — just instinct and training in the middle of absolute chaos. Police body-cam footage shows her working the scene as calmly as if she were on her own unit, and the man made it to the hospital alive because a nurse refused to walk past. Off the clock does not exist for us, and this is the proof.

Something from a Subscriber

"Night shift, med-surg, 0300. I had a 92-year-old patient with dementia who had not slept in two days — sundowning hard, pulling at her lines, calling out for her husband. Nothing in my bag of tricks was working, and I was one bed alarm away from losing it. So on a whim, I asked her to help ME with MY job. I told her the blanket warmer was overflowing and I could not possibly fold them all myself. She folded warm blankets in her recliner for 45 minutes, told me I was a good worker but a little slow, and fell asleep mid-fold — the most peaceful she had looked all week.

Her daughter told me the next morning that folding laundry every night while her late husband watched TV had been their routine for 60 years. I did not chart therapeutic blanket folding, but it worked better than anything on the MAR. Some nights the best intervention is not in any care plan."

— Rachel M., Med-Surg RN, Wisconsin

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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