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 Pennsylvania woman just pleaded guilty after spending years working as a nurse — without ever holding a license in any state. Shannon Womack used roughly 20 aliases, seven Social Security numbers, and the stolen identities of real registered nurses to pick up shifts at at least nine facilities across Western Pennsylvania, even inventing her own fake staffing agency so she could act as her own job reference. Investigators say she may have walked off with more than 120 oxycodone pills during a single shift. On August 5 she was sentenced to 4.5 to 9 years in state prison plus six years of probation, and she still faces identity fraud warrants in four other states. The nurses whose names she stole spent years fielding calls from investigators — and in more than 10 minutes of addressing the court, she never once apologized to them.

Something to make you furious

Registered nurses at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley, California rallied outside their own hospital last week to protest CommonSpirit’s plan to lay off seven nurses — five from the Family Birth Center and two from the outpatient infusion center — while also slashing the infusion clinic’s hours. Nurses warn the cuts will delay chemo, blood products, and other time-sensitive treatments in a rural community that already has limited access to care. Meanwhile, CommonSpirit’s own tax filings show its top 10 executives collected more than $310 million from 2020 to 2024, and its CEO took home a $14 million package last fiscal year. Layoff notices are hitting nurses and support staff at CommonSpirit facilities across the country. Cutting bedside nurses while writing executive checks like that? Make it make sense.

Something to make us nurses proud

The Milwaukee Brewers just wrapped up four straight Healthcare Appreciation Nights at American Family Field, and nurses ran the show. Four standout nurses — an ER charge nurse and DAISY Award winner, two CVICU powerhouses, and a high-risk labor and delivery nurse — each threw out the ceremonial first pitch before games against the Pirates. The honorees got on-field recognition, free tickets, and enough well-earned applause to last until next season. It’s a small gesture compared to what nurses give every shift, but seeing our profession celebrated on an MLB field never gets old. Take a bow, Milwaukee.

Something from a Subscriber

“I had a patient on my med-surg floor, a retired truck driver in his 80s, who refused to eat anything the kitchen sent up. Three days of untouched trays. He was getting weaker, the docs were floating a feeding consult, and nothing — not milkshakes, not his daughter begging — was working. One night around 3 a.m. I found him wide awake and asked him what he actually wanted. He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘A gas station hot dog. The kind that’s been rolling since Tuesday.’

So on my break I drove to the 24-hour gas station down the street and bought two of the most radioactive-looking hot dogs I have ever seen. He ate both, told me I was the only one in the building with any sense, and started eating his breakfast tray the next morning. He walked off our unit two weeks later. Sometimes the best clinical intervention isn’t in any care plan — it’s a $1.50 hot dog at 3 a.m.”

— Dana R., 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!

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