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What do I mean by “stretch?” Stretch means doing something different, something hard and going past what you believe to be your limitations. We nurses tend to get stuck in our comfort zone.  We are at the top of our game as a nurse, yet we tend to stay there without pushing ourselves to be, do or have more. Your […]

I frequently am heard saying, “You can always get another job but not another license.”  Over the past few years, particularly under the duress of the pandemic, nursing has become an extremely difficult profession.  If you are not happy in the area where you work, try something new. We all are conditioned by our comfort zone to which we are […]

Hospitals across the country are offering internal travel nurse programs.  Did you know that? What is great about this is that you can make the money of a travel nurse while the healthcare facility does not have to pay the middleman agency for the nurses.  Plus, if you love the job, you can possibly get hired full time. To me, […]

A recently released study showed that in 2021 male nurses were earning a median salary that was $14,000.00 more than their female counterparts.  The previous year, 2020, the median salary for male nurses was $7,297.00 higher that the ladies. An interesting thing revealed by the study was that males consistently asked for higher salaries than females when accepting nursing positions. […]

I have come over the years to sort out businesses into three classes, each modeled after a current successful company: Walmart, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus. A Walmart business gives discounts to pull in patrons to purchase your goods or services.  It’s like Groupon where people look at the price and the product before deciding which they wish to purchase. The […]

The captain of your ship?  Is that you? The ship captain analogy was used quite a bit in our recent retreat as it is applicable in nursing. In law, “the captain of the ship” is a doctrine meaning that the physician is responsible for everything that happens in surgery.  However, I use the term to question whether you are charting […]

I have heard that many hospitals have done away with Nurses’ week and now celebrate “Hospital week.” Interestingly, the largest workforce in healthcare is nurses, yet their one special week gets taken away from them when doctors have their own day and other health professions have their own day to celebrate. According to an article in BECKER’S HOSPITAL REVIEW, and […]

On April 30, 2022, halfway through his shift at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, a nurse entered a supply closet and, taking a gun he brought from home, took his own life in front of a coworker.  This was the second suicide in that area since the first of the year. This broke my heart to learn of […]

Did you know that almost every contract includes a provision called a “covenant not to compete” or a “covenant not to solicit”? Basically, what these mean is that you cannot talk to any clients of a person or work in a particular area during the term of the contract and after. Courts do not like covenants not to compete because […]

I did not realize that travel nurses make an average hourly rate of $120.00 per hour! In an article regarding travel nursing by the numbers, the R.N. vacancy rate is a full percentage point higher this year than in 2020. However, the number participating as travel nurses is declining because the cost of travel is so much more than it […]