tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5614641499256174127.post4289013078030748754..comments2024-03-14T11:24:30.641-06:00Comments on Journey to Badwater: I'm Tired of It. Let's Start Fixing It: A Rant and Call to Action.Alene Gone Badhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09887360033395271217noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5614641499256174127.post-91495289194401912112013-11-04T08:55:43.661-07:002013-11-04T08:55:43.661-07:00Elaine, Thank you for your interest and stepping u...Elaine, Thank you for your interest and stepping up! To get started, please either friend me on Facebook or check out The Future of Nursing (new FB group formed today) and The Truth About Nursing and NAASA, which is Nurse Advocacy Awareness and Support of America Colorado Chapter and contact me. We are starting by generating ideas from interested nurses about where the future of nursing should go so that we can solidify and articulate a common purpose, so that we will all be unified in moving forward. This is very early in the formative stages. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you.Alene Gone Badhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09887360033395271217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5614641499256174127.post-26373877036390863132013-11-04T08:49:05.140-07:002013-11-04T08:49:05.140-07:00I am an RN BSN finishing law school in one year. I...I am an RN BSN finishing law school in one year. I want to do patient advocacy. As I am working in a care facility now, it makes me want to do nurse advocacy. I am open to suggestions! Where do you think I am the most needed, and doing what? Get specific.<br />Elaineelainehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12127336504429450857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5614641499256174127.post-71546910734962905732013-11-04T08:18:46.091-07:002013-11-04T08:18:46.091-07:00Mary Beck I am frustrated, yes. And angry at your ...Mary Beck I am frustrated, yes. And angry at your comment. I also see how the emotions fly and we start yelling at each other. But I really don't see the mainstream organizations helping further nursing to be a profession that anyone would want to join. Other nurses have tried to start groups and they have been brought down by the nurses themselves fighting against each other. I often wonder if nursing is just a dying profession and traditional nursing has no place in the modern world of health care. Perhaps we will be replaced with robotic assistants who never get tired, can get their batteries recharged and perform patient care. Nurses are not being supported, they are not being recognized as human beings. So maybe this robotic care assistant is the way to go. I'm not even being sarcastic. Alene Gone Badhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09887360033395271217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5614641499256174127.post-44107018065641639692013-11-04T08:00:03.991-07:002013-11-04T08:00:03.991-07:00Mary Beck, my state ANA is full of people who prom...Mary Beck, my state ANA is full of people who promote the status quo. what you have just suggested could be verbatim from the talking points of management and those organizations you suggest are helping nurses. How in the world is a bedside nurse supposed to be more active in his or her workplace when the work week leaves them exhausted and needing at least a full day off out of their personal time to recover and feel human. Burned out, exhausted nurses don't want to be more active in their workplaces. They don't have the energy to join groups. They don't have the money either. And when they try to speak up in the workplace, they are dismissed or burned at the stake for questioning or having creative thoughts. Management finds ways to backstab them and put pressure on them to get rid of them. The changes you speak of that have modernized nursing are looking pretty pathetic these days, we seem to be going back to the dark ages of workplace abuses and dangerous staffing levels. Where is the ANA and Magnet in policing these abuses? Nowhere to be seen, they look the other way and focus on advance practice nursing. You're propagating conditions that encourage nurses to become advance practice nurses, but ignoring the plight of the registered nurse who doesn't want to do advanced practice. Your organizations are hurting nurses, not helping them. You mention mentors? Where are the mentors? You tell me! I didn't have any mentors for my first 2 years as a new grad! I had backstabbers. I had young-eaters. When I changed to a different area, there was no mentoring. The entrenched nurses who had been there for 20 years did everything in their power to keep things the same and resisted my ideas for change at every opportunity. They didn't mentor me, they backstabbed me. You say we should learn from that behavior? You don't stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. You step on the heads of those who come after you, and kick them when they're down. You're right about nurses being passive. They do bitch to each other in small groups. They are scared, tired, and feel overpowered by those in power who lead by force and not by welcoming new blood. The existing nursing organizations are not helping anyone but the big money interests these days. The existing nursing organizations have failed us. Joining them is expensive, and you can't make change in them because they are full of the old guard, and promote education in ways that are not beneficial to all nurses. If the organizations really wanted to help, they would act as advocates for working nurses, make nursing education less expensive, ensure that employers provide safe environments to grow new nurses, allow nurses to have safe staffing levels, stand up to the corporate interests that work against nurses, help us figure out reasonable workloads to span a 12 hour shift so the nurses can get breaks, refresh our minds, think and breathe. We have come to this place because of the big nursing organizations' failure to do these things. It is time for a change, and a different approach. We've seen the cycle too many times already- nursing shortage, scramble to promote nursing, shortage of faculty to educate, wait lists to get into nursing school, glut of new nurses who can't get jobs, burning out the old ones. The same will happen with nurse practitioners as you move toward forcing them to get doctorates. The schools don't even have their ducks in a row to provide doctoral programs with any meaning for the coming wave of advance practice nurses who will be forced to get these degrees, at huge cost to themselves. Don't tell me nurses should join your organizations. Your organizations are heavily invested in nothing but the same moneyed interests who are ruining nurses. Enough said. Alene Gone Badhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09887360033395271217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5614641499256174127.post-74515003854336495562013-11-04T05:07:21.332-07:002013-11-04T05:07:21.332-07:00I have a suggestion for you. Instead of suggesting...I have a suggestion for you. Instead of suggesting the ANA and its magnet subsidiary be disbanded, why don't you join your state nurses association/ANA and make changes from within? The only way for bedside nurses to effect changes in their workplaces is to become more active at their workplace, their state level and national levels.How do you think we have gotten any of the changes that have modernized modern nursing and advanced practice nursing? We stand on the shoulders of someone who did the hard work before us. If we do not learn from our mentors and carry on the work, the next generationof nurses is in trouble. The problem is that many nurses are passive; they bitch to each other in small groups. Get educated, get active within your nursing organizations, and get busy. mary.beck@charter.netnoreply@blogger.com