“When you blog, the entire world is your audience.” – Unknown

If you are already tapping into the valuable business tool known as “blogging,” you don’t need me to tell you that blogging has the potential to be as effective a marketing medium as Facebook or Twitter!

It’s an amazing platform in which to deliver value-added information about your products or services, plus being a slammin’-good way to communicate with people who share your hobbies, passions, interests, frustrations, and goals in life.

Anyone who has been a blogger for more than a month knows about the slew of “measuring” widgets out there that are designed to rate or “rank” your blog in the eyes of the Almighty Blogosphere. But what the heck is “rank?” Ranking a blog is kinda like measuring the health, influence, and standing of your blog and there are very specific ways to achieve that.

Technorati: Technorati is a site that indexes blogs and is an awesome place you can go to search for other people’s blogs. Kinda of like a Yellow Pages for blogs. Another cool thing it does is rank blogs. Blogs will appear ranked by topical authority within Technorati’s blog directory with #1 obviously be at the top of the pack. Signing up on Technorati is short and easy. When you do go through the “claim your blog” process you will need to put a post on your blog with a special code they give you. This verifies that you own the blog so all you need to do is put it in a new post and then delete it after an hour or so.

Technorati

Hubspot’s MarketingGrader:  This cool (and free) site replaced the super popular BlogGrader a while back. This is a great tool to pin-point areas of  your blog that could use some beefing up. Simply plug in the URL of your blog and MarketingGrader graciously points out areas of improvement. Cool beans…

Hubspot MarketingGrader

Alexa Rank: Alexa is a very powerful tool used to rank website traffic and it’s also used to measure how your blog or website stacks up against your competitors. The thing to remember about Alexa Ranking is that, the lower the ranking number, the better your ranking is. Your Alexa Ranking is used as a big deciding factor in valuing the advertising space on your website or blog by about 85% of advertisers. Should you keep your Alexa widget up if your stats aren’t great? Personally, I think you don’t want anything on your blog that is not complimentary to what you are doing. An Alexa widget with a crappy number is like shouting “I’m Not Popular!” to visitors.

Alexa Ranking Tool

Want to get your Alex ranking up? Try these steps and watch for results:

1. Place an Alexa.com widget/plugin or chart on your website or blog ASAP.
2. Install the Alexa toolbar on your own computer and encourage your readers to do the same on their computers (an blog post tutorial might be a great idea).
3. Write rockin content on relevant topics and that are SEO optimized for traffic.

I will leave you with this thought. If you are blogging for fun and casual enjoyment, don’t sweat the numbers. However, if you are blogging for your business and you’re serious about your efforts, take the steps and use these tools to your advantage. Happy blogging!

Anna Morrison is the Founder of The EntrepreNurse™ Group and the annual EntrepreNurse™ Summit. Her work empowers Nurses to leverage their clinical experience to create profitable businesses with meaningful impact. She is the #1 Amazon Bestselling author of 5 Things They Never Told You in Nursing School. Her upcoming books include: The EntrepreNurse Club: Escape the Bedside, Make a Difference, and (Finally) Earn What You’re Worth, and the awe-inspiring Magnitude 7.0: Hope & Transformation After Haiti’s Apocalyptic Earthquake. As an inspiring servant-leader and in-demand speaker, and nursing career coach, Anna has helped hundreds of nurses re-connect to their passion for making a difference in the world, while improving their own lives. Anna runs the “I Coach Nurses” Blog online and her international volunteer work has been featured in The Miami Herald, on Good Morning America, Plum TV and Nurse.com. Anna is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the National Association of Legal Nurse Consultants.

When I was working the night shift, one of my patients- a 44 year old man, had just gone for an angiogram. He had been brought back to the floor afterwards, but began hemorrhaging from his femoral artery. I’d added pressure dressings, laid on heavier sandbags, and then called the intern.

The intern took a while to get to the floor and all the while the patient kept bleeding heavily. When the intern just shook his head and did nothing, I called his resident. When the resident didn’t respond, I called the attending. Now I knew I was in big trouble. It didn’t matter that the patient’s blood pressure was 60/40 by the time I called, it mattered that I had broken protocol.

Because I knew this Directress of Nursing was good and fair, when she called me into her office, I decided to try to listen to her with an open mind, even though the whole thing made no sense to me.

She was sitting at her big oak desk and she hardly looked up as she waved her hand, indicating that I should sit in the chair across from her.

“You’re a good nurse,” she said, “that’s not the problem.” She smiled just a bit when she added, “I’m even beginning to believe that you’re a good person.” She looked straight at me when she added, “But you’re difficult to deal with. You’re headstrong – a lot for a supervisor to handle. Though you’re supposed to be part of a team, you often make independent decisions that I have to be responsible for.”

“No one else was available. That patient almost bled out and not one of those doctors paid any real attention,” I said. “And how often have I been wrong?” I asked.

“That’s not the point,” she said, her voice soft, patient. “So far you’ve been right. But what if we let every smart young nurse make independent decisions-how well would that work for the organization, for the business of medicine? Who will be liable?”

“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked defensively. “Stand by and let the patient die until I get an okay?”

She stiffened. Her voice was steely when she spoke now. “That’s one alternative,” she said. “The other is to go back to school and get more education. Get enough degrees that you can run your own show and take your own responsibility.”

When she saw I was really listening, she added, “You’re not going to do anybody much good if you behave in a way that gets you fired.”

So I went back to school and got more degrees, as many other women and men have done, based on the promise of nursing in an evolving health care system. We, as nurses, understood the value of education for autonomy, and knew what we needed to do as professionals. In other words, we grew up.

But today, thirty years later with many more nurses with degrees, have any of the organizations, who are supposed to back us, grown into “professional organizations” that can support us?

Are we paid as independent professionals who’ve been trained to think, consider treatments, help patients and their family through the difficulties of life and death, if necessary?

Have doctors suddenly begun to treat us like colleagues, with any real understanding of what a better education has done to change our role and the way we can work together?

Has the business of medicine stopped stacking us with the bedpans and the gauze pads as part of their budget so that we can’t be “cut” whenever they have a budget shortage?

And while– for budgetary reasons –they are even considering putting us in the place of primary caregivers because there are fewer doctors who are willing to work for the wages the corporations (that we now call healthcare) are willing to pay, who has our back?

Nurses have  gotten better educations, they’ve grown up. They’ve done their part.

But what about the rest of Healthcare?

Are they going to grow up too and let the patients know how important nurses are to their well-being? Are they going to pay us and treat us with the respect we deserve?

Or is the business of medicine going to watch the mass exodus of the smartest and best nurses as they hit the road for a profession that offers respect for work well done, autonomy to go with responsibility, decent pay without intimidation, and most of all for caring for what happens to another?

If not, if they stay stuck, what happens to the patients? All those mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, all the sick children and new babies to whom life deals a tragic blow and who depend on us to keep them safe and advocate for them? Who will be there to observe, educate, nurture, comfort, call, soothe and help them through the hardest times? Who?

To Congress and to the Business of Healthcare I say:

“This is not the Golden Goose, it is the Golden Calf.  Beware.”

Annette Tersigni: YogaNurse.com

“Nurses are experts in 1001 areas.” – Annette Tersigni, the Yoga Nurse

Annette Tersigni RN, #1 Amazon Best Selling Author of ‘THE RICHEST WOMAN IN BABYLON AND MANHATTAN’, is a speaker, teacher, medical activist, and an expert in physical, financial & spiritual stress relief. Known as the YogaNurse, Annette is the founder of Yoga Nursing® - a new trend combining the power of Nursing & Yoga. Her mission is to “Expand Consciousness in Health Care”, giving sacred service, enlightening, transforming & saving lives.

Annette Tersigni is a bit of a rebel. A rebel who’s also a very successful seminar leader, speaker, mentor, writer, Yogini, and a proud health care revolutionary. Annette is all of 60 years young, and her brand of Yoga Nursing® is just getting majorly revved up!

Annette’s mission began several years ago when, as she worked with nurses at multiple facilities, she heard an united plea for help. Hearing countless sister nurses complain, “this job is killing me,” inspired her to find a remedy for an obvious self-care deficit. Her remedy; a yoga-based stress management program. As an applied mystic, nurse entrepreneur, and yoga-preneur, she has founded a revolutionary movement in healthcare referred to as Yoga Nursing®. Through Yoga Nursing®, Annette has helped thousands of healthcare providers use her certified CEU programs to relieve chronic stress, pain, suffering and anxiety, and teach their patients to do the same.

ANNETTE’S INSPIRATION

Annette’s main inspiration comes from her own experience of stress, anxiety, pain and suffering. Annette explained to me that she encountered and learned from teachers, saints, and many others who saved her from her own “egotistical self “and from the disappointment in herself which she had felt for a long time. Annette’s efforts have borne fruit, and she has been featured or covered extensively through leading media outlets including CBS, affiliates of Fox news and a recent interview on national television by Arielle Ford. Annette is also very proud to have been chosen as the first nurse hero by Modern Nightingale magazine.

Modern Nightingale Magazine

Yoga Nursing® is also called ‘The Sacred Remedy,’ which she prescribes to treat stress, pain, anxiety, and suffering. According to Annette, the remedy consists of four parts; Sacred Movement, Sacred Breath, Sacred Nourishment and Sacred Rest. “I want to help fellow nurses who heal, to heal themselves,” shares Annette. She holds seminars to educate nurses and patients about ‘the sacred remedy’ where she teaches individuals from all walks of life the steps that one can use to achieve and experience what she refers as mystical results.

Already a successfully published author, the ever-prolific, Annette, is in the process of completing a second book called, “Health Care Rebel with a Cause.” Her upcoming book is about the Sacred Remedy and will be available for purchase in the Fall of 2012.

QUALIFICATIONS

Annette is a registered nurse and wellness educator. She has studied side-by-side with Deepak Chopra and David Simon, as a certified Ayurverdic health educator. She is also a certified Kripalu yoga teacher and a certified integral yoga teacher. She also is a yoga alliance ERYT 500 and a skilled, registered yoga teacher with over thirty years experience in the art of Yoga. Annette also has certification as a teacher of meditation and is a trained lay pastoral minister for the sick and dying.

Annette’s programs have been adapted by many doctors and medical practitioners as safe therapies to minimize hurt and suffering. These programs also help individuals find inner peace and serenity. She has been practicing for the last sixteen years. Currently she is coaching and training other nurses, physical therapists, social workers, yoga teachers and other acknowledged health practitioners in the United States of America in the sacred art of Yoga Nursing®.

Chosen as the first nurse hero by Modern Nightingale magazine, Annette is a frequent guest of the media on national TV & radio. She resides on the pristine South Outer Banks of North Carolina where she loves to frolic with dolphins and play her ‘not so mean’ blues harp. Be sure and check out her amazing website YogaNurse.com.

Check out Annette’s #1 Amazon Best Seller! Click image to order:

The Richest Woman in Babylon And Manhattan

Nursing is my vocation. Yoga is my power-tool. And Yoga Nursing® is my legacy — Annette Tersigni

 Anna Morrison is the Founder of The EntrepreNurse™ Group and the annual EntrepreNurse™ Summit. Her work empowers Nurses to leverage their clinical experience to create profitable businesses with meaningful impact. She is the #1 Amazon Bestselling author of 5 Things They Never Told You in Nursing School. Her upcoming books include: The EntrepreNurse Club: Escape the Bedside, Make a Difference, and (Finally) Earn What You’re Worth, and the awe-inspiring Magnitude 7.0: Hope & Transformation After Haiti’s Apocalyptic Earthquake. As an inspiring servant-leader and in-demand speaker, and nursing career coach, Anna has helped hundreds of nurses re-connect to their passion for making a difference in the world, while improving their own lives. Anna runs the “I Coach Nurses” Blog online and her international volunteer work has been featured in The Miami Herald, on Good Morning America, Plum TV and Nurse.com. Anna is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the National Association of Legal Nurse Consultants.

Being FABULOUS is hard work. - Author Unknown

Every day we work. We work, We help. We create. We are FABULOUS.

And darn it, being fabulous is hard work!

So what do you do when your body is dragging, your mind is depleted, and your internal tank is flat outta gas?

Unplug and decompress.

Nine Tips For Destressing and Replenishing:

1. Deep breathing: Breathe. Exhale deeply. Relax. REPEAT.

2. Walk it off! This is especially important if you are cooped up all day indoors. Exercise of any kind will boost energy and give you a better outlook on life. Walking or running outside in the fresh air will do wonders for your stress levels. Did you know that a 20-minute walk or jog around the block can yield up to 12 hours of improved mood?? Plus, it’s FREE. Count me in!

3. Unplug. All this social media connectivity and being “on” all the time is exhausting. Silence the digital noise. UNPLUG. Shut off all electronics including phones, ipods, ipads, and laptops. Trust me, the world won’t end if you don’t check email for an hour.

4.Snooze: Make like a cat and nap (prerferably in the sun).  If you can’t get to sleep within ten or fifteen minutes, get up and read or meditate. Just “chill” for 15-20 minutes and refresh yourself.

5. Book it, Dano! Curling up on the couch and reading a good book is like escaping to another world. Read something positive and uplifting if possible. This mini-vacation from reality allows you to put your worries aside and transport into another world of mystery, intrique, romance, fantasy, etc.

6. Take A Soak:  A hot bath with a little lavendar, a side order of candles…. and a maybe a sip of wine. YES PLEASE.

7. Socialize! Call up some of your besties and go for Starbucks coffee and a chat. Spending time friends (or even family) enhances our social desire to belong. It’s also fun to blow steam with like-minded folks.

8. Laugh. Laughter really is the best medicine. It’s proven to lower your blood pressure, anxiety, and tension. At the same time it improves your blood flow and the health of your heart. Watch a funny You Tube video (I recommed Walk On The Wildside with talking animals-hilarious!), rent a comedy, or hang with the pal who is just. plain. funny. Laugh and forget about your worries for a while.

9. Spoil Yourself: Take some time to give yourself the gift of something out of the ordinary. Something you wouldn’t normally do for yourself. Splurge a little in terms of time or money. Something that says to both you and others, “I’m treating myself today!” You and your hard work deserve it!

The Internet is littered with programs, apps, and plug-ins that all have the potential of being valuable tools for your business. Testing, researching, and exploring these gadgets and gizmos, however, could be a full-time job!  In my never-ending quest to find the hippest, hottest, and most efficient options for my EntrpreNurses, I have come up with a list of 7 “must have” free helper tools for business professionals:

1. TwitCleaner : Because it’s about the QUALITY not the QUANTITY of your Twitter Followers. Twitcleaner weeds the “junk” out of your Twitter Followers and leaves you with a solid, viable, and active base. Shady followers, self-absorbed followers, and inactive followers are all compiled into a Twitcleaner provided report for you and gives you the option to leave them be, or unfollow.

2. Bubbl.us: If you are a fan of Mind-Mapping, this super cool site let’s you create your own custom, colorful Mind-Maps that you can store, share, and update for later. “Brainstorm online with bubbl.us.”

Brainstorm and Share

3. Google Alerts: One of the keys to success is to research and monitor everything connected to your industry. Google Alerts helps you track activity on the Internet when a specific keyword is mentioned. Google Alerts help in:

• monitoring a developing news story
• keeping current on a competitor or industry
• getting the latest on a celebrity or event
• keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams

Set up an Alert for your business name and it will give you a cyber “heads-up” via email whenever your name is mentioned on-line. You can also set it for industry-related keywords to track news and updates in your field.

4. Google Boomerang:  This nifty little tool is a Firefox / Chrome plugin that lets you take control of when you send and receive email messages. Need to send something Friday but afraid you won’t remember? Write it, Boomerang it, and it will automatically send on the date and time you desire. No more “oh crap I forgot!”or “did I hear back from them or not?”

5. Skype: Don’t rack up minutes on your phone! Use Skype to speak with clients, business partners, and suppliers. Opt to use the camera feature and actually see who you are talking to as well. If you find yourself ringing up hefty long distance bills, start asking clients and friends to Skype you. Works for international calls as well. There are packages you can pay for too, but that depends on your individual calling needs. Plus the funky little noise Skype makes when it boots up is pretty cool

6. Freshbooks : Freshbooks it a pretty sweet accounting and invoicing site that makes both less painful. It’s completely FREE for your first three clients. You can track expenses, create time sheets and log hours on projects. I am groovin’ on the Timer. It’s a way to keep real-time records of when projects start and end. Bring up the Start/Stop Timer tab, pick what task you are performing for which client, and start the Timer. When your done, click “Log Hours” and it automatically logs your time for you under that client for later billing.

7. AWeber: Building an email list is still important for any business. Remember you own your email list, you don’t own your Twitter followers or Facebook fans. AWeber is a great platform and makes creating and analyzing email campaigns really easy. However the best part is it is super cheap for up to 500 subscribers on your list. So when you’re just starting out it is a good way to test out all the features of an email marketing campaign without actually paying much at all.

There’s 7 Little Nuggest Of Entrepreneur Gold for you! I’d love to hear your top picks for free tools, apps and plug-ins. Use the comment below and share some of your favs!

Anna Morrison is the Founder of The EntrepreNurse™ Group and the annual EntrepreNurse™ Summit. Her work empowers Nurses to leverage their clinical experience to create profitable businesses with meaningful impact. She is the #1 Amazon Bestselling author of 5 Things They Never Told You in Nursing School. Her upcoming books include: The EntrepreNurse Club: Escape the Bedside, Make a Difference, and (Finally) Earn What You’re Worth, and the awe-inspiring Magnitude 7.0: Hope & Transformation After Haiti’s Apocalyptic Earthquake. As an inspiring servant-leader and in-demand speaker, and nursing career coach, Anna has helped hundreds of nurses re-connect to their passion for making a difference in the world, while improving their own lives. Anna runs the “I Coach Nurses” Blog online and her international volunteer work has been featured in The Miami Herald, on Good Morning America, Plum TV and Nurse.com. Anna is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the National Association of Legal Nurse Consultants.

Carol Gino, New York Times’ Bestselling Author and Nurse Leader advocating for Amanda Trujillo.

Kevin Ross, Nurse Entrepreneur, fellow Nurse Blogger and Co-Host at RN.FM Radio advocating for Amanda Trujillo.

Michael Pergrem, “Coach Perg,” Nursing Coach and Nurse Entrepreneur advocating for Amanda Trujillo.

If you don’t know who embattled Nurse Amanda Trujillo is, well, you’ve probably been living under a rock, or maybe you just worked 3 in a row…in either case, you’re forgiven.

Before you listen to her audio interview though, check out my 2 previous posts about her dire situation here and here.

Once you understand her case, you’ll also understand it’s far-reaching implications for the Nursing profession and a patient’s right to informed consent and right to determine the course of their own care.

Let that all sink in for a bit and then listen to Amanda explain her case in her own words in this very special interview:

Please re-post this interview on Facebook and Twitter! People need to hear Amanda’s story in her own words. We need to keep the pressure up on the Arizona State Board of Nursing and Banner Health, and keep her support going.

–

Arizona State Board of Nursing

4747 North 7th Street, Suite 200

Phoenix, AZ 85014-3655

602-771-7800 Phone
602-771-7888 Fax
arizona@azbn.gov Email

http://www.azbn.gov/Default.aspx

To whom it may concern,

In the case of Amanda Trujillo, RN, a profoundly negative and chilling precedent threatens to silence nurses in their efforts to uphold their solemn oaths to protect, educate and advocate for their patients.

Additionally, a patient’s Right to Know and Right to Self-Determination are directly in jeopardy.

National Nursing groups, Patients’ Rights Advocacy groups, and the media have been put on alert and are watching this case carefully, hoping that the AZ BON makes the right choice to support the education and interventional activities of a nurse, who discovered a severe knowledge deficit in her patient and operated within her scope to rectify it.

It would be a shameful to set a precedent that re-defines our profession and the collaborative health care model that we thought we operated in for the good of our patients.

I respectfully request that you consider dropping the complaint filed against Amanda Trujillo’s license and the case against her.

Best regards,
Anna Morrison, BA, BSN, RN, CLNC

–

So even though the company’s founder isn’t a nurse per se, he’s an EMS and a fellow health care entrepreneur and his product line rocks. The smart and funny, Mr. Avi Goldstein, has created a clever little solution to the age-old “where do I stash my tape?” problem for nurses, docs, and first responders of every stripe. 

The S3 StatTM is a patent-pending new tape-holding and dispensing accessory, which helps us keep our routinely used medical tape handy and easily dispensable when we need it to be. No more tape bulging from your pockets or having to run to the supply closet for it during a bandage change, because you forgot to bring enough. 

Never fear, the S3 StatTM is HERE. This dandy item is the Cure For The Common Fumbling (fumbling for your tape, that is). Here are the details:

The S3 is made in the good ol’ U.S.A and is constructed of a solid ABS plastic material to maintain its strength and flexibility. It attaches to your stethoscope for easy access. Despite it’s solid build, S3 StatTM is extremely lightweight (under .3oz).

When a roll of tape is attached to it, it acts as a perfect counter-weight to the heavier bell side of your stethoscope to help balance it around your neck. It was designed with a slotted screw that enables it to fit on all standard sized stethoscopes, even though varying stethoscope tube diameters exist.

Cumbersome or hard-to-use? Nope. Attaching a new roll of 1” medical tape or removing a used roll is surprisingly easy!

Stethotape Securing Device

The S3 is available in several colors, such as Cyanotic Blue, Melena Black, Septic Green, and Diaphoretic White to name a few. Love it! Nothing better than a company with a twisted sense of medical humor.

All this being said, there are 2 take-aways I want to highlight here:

1) If you’re a nurse, doc or first-responder and you use tape frequently, you need run-don’t-walk to grab one of these little puppies. The cost is reasonable, the construction is solid, and the time-savings are big.

2) And lastly, this is a perfect example of entrepreneurial thinking in action and a clever health care provider solving a pesky problem he faced on a daily basis.

THIS is exactly the kind of innovative thinking that nurse entrepreneurs are famous for! And even though, Avi’s not exactly a nurse, I’ve adopted him as one of my ‘nurse entrepreneurs to watch’ for his clever and creative solution-oriented product creation and the way he’s out there making the lives of nurses and first responders better with his killer little tape dispenser.

The message is, guys, that sometimes, it’s not about ‘saving the world,’ sometimes, it’s just about solving that annoying little problem you and everyone you work with keeps encountering on a daily basis.

So, here’s to Avi’s innovation and all of you out there who are striving to accomplish the very same goals!

Keep up the great work, innovators and entrepreneurs!

If you want to check out the whole line of StatGear Tools, head over HERE to check out their website and pop on by StatGear’s Facebook PAGE and give them a big ol’ juicy LIKE.

While you’re there, come on over and join the conversation on the I Coach Nurses Fanpage.

Anna Morrison is the Founder of The EntrepreNurse™ Group and the annual EntrepreNurse™ Summit. Her work empowers Nurses to leverage their clinical experience to create profitable businesses with meaningful impact. She is the #1 Amazon Bestselling author of 5 Things They Never Told You in Nursing School. Her upcoming books include: The EntrepreNurse Club: Escape the Bedside, Make a Difference, and (Finally) Earn What You’re Worth, and the awe-inspiring Magnitude 7.0: Hope & Transformation After Haiti’s Apocalyptic Earthquake. As an inspiring servant-leader and in-demand speaker, and nursing career coach, Anna has helped hundreds of nurses re-connect to their passion for making a difference in the world, while improving their own lives. Anna runs the “I Coach Nurses” Blog online and her international volunteer work has been featured in The Miami Herald, on Good Morning America, Plum TV and Nurse.com. Anna is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the National Association of Legal Nurse Consultants.

Guest Post by New York Times #1 Bestselling Author and Registered Nurse, Carol Gino

Okay, so after about 10 hours stiffening into stone sitting in front of a computer screen, I finally decided to get up and move inside, away from reading anything about healthcare. I want light, mindless entertainment. So I flop down on the couch and pick up the remote to begin scanning tonight’s programs. I click through the stations like a man. But the remote always returns to the same station.

Oh God! Grey’s Anatomy. I love Grey’s Anatomy. Why do I love it? There’s nothing like it in the real world. But that’s why I love it. It’s so romantic. It paints such heroes. Heroes I believed in when I was a teenager. Doctors who fall apart when a patient dies, doctors who smooth a patient’s brow for long minutes, doctors who forego dinner at the local pub with their friends in order to play checkers with a patient…..What?

Doctors? Where are the damn nurses? Nurses do all those good things. How did they take all those great qualities of nurses and give them to doctors? How did they make doctors MORE by giving them the qualities that they used to make us LESS? We’re the caretakers, nurturers – we’re the ones who know the families.

What does a hospitalist who just met a patient in the hospital know about his family? And what about health insurance? You think all those wonderful qualities they’ve just given all those doctors can be tabulated, calculated, and paid for? What will they call it? After all, what about the bottom line?

The point is they cast a lot more women as doctors, because there are a lot more women doctors, but it’s also because doctors have an elevated status. They’re important. I mean I know everyone says they trust nurses more, but still they RESPECT doctors. So now, movie makers and TV producers have decided to take nurses best qualities, add brain power (which they don’t know we have) up the status and call this new hybrid doctors. Well, they’re not doctors. Nurse Practitioners maybe, but not doctors.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying there are no doctors like that, no good doctors, there are. But they don’t work in hospitals because insurance won’t pay for such holistic treatment. I mean, between Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, they’re going to have us all believing most doctors are human. Thank God for “House.” Suddenly, it hit me. It’s true. I get the misunderstanding. Nobody knows what a nurse does. Especially TV producers. So now I figure one of the jobs I’ll take on this year is to try to share with everyone what nurses do.

I’d love it if you would all help with suggestions. Just add it to the comments box. It will be fun. Then I’ll post the composites on “Occupy Healthcare” or other patient sites and we’ll be able to help change the healthcare system. I mean how many people do you think would voluntarily go to a hospital if that hospital said, “Sorry, we don’t have enough doctors to staff the floors. After all, there’s a shortage you know. No one wants to teach doctors how to help any more.”

What do you think?

–

Carol Gino RN, MA, has been a nurse, author and teacher for many years. She has worked in all areas of nursing including Emergency Room, Intensive Care, the Burn Unit, Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, Pediatric Intensive Care, and Hospice Care for the terminally ill.

Her first book, “The Nurse’s Story” published by Simon and Schuster, sold to nine foreign countries besides the US. It is still in print in Japan. It was a feature of the Book of the Month Club and Nurses Book Club and was on PW’s list for six weeks. It was #2 on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. Carol did two cross country tours for The Nurse’s Story: which included TV, radio and print media.

She has appeared on several TV and radio shows including; “The Today Show”, “Charlie Rose”, “Houston Live”, “Regis and Kathy Lee”, “AM Los Angeles” , “AM San Francisco” etc. The Nurse’s Story was serialized in the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post etc. People Magazine did a feature article on her, and she has been highlighted in many other local and national papers.

She has written articles for New York Magazine (aka Teri Daniels), American Journal of Nursing, and other Nursing Mags. Three of her articles were published in Nursing 97 (the largest nursing journal – circulation of over 350,000.) Three of her stories and several editorials also appeared in Nursing ‘98.

Ms. Gino’s second book “Rusty’s Story” sold 350,000 copies and again, Carol did a 15 city media tour. That book received the Epilepsy Association’s National Book Award and was on the New York Times bestseller list for 5 weeks. She also received the Service Award from the Epilepsy Association of Ohio and spoke to many epilepsy associations across the country. Ciba Geigy made her their spokesperson for the anticonvulsant drug, Tegretol. And another media tour followed.

In 1997 Kensington published Carol Gino’s book about the SIDS death of her grandson: “Then An Angel Came…” Both of her previous books, “The Nurse’s Story” and “Rusty’s Story” have been reprinted.

Ms. Gino is also very active on the internet and maintains a website called “The Hopeful Healer” at http://hopefulhealer.com/. She acted as a Nursing consultant in Healing Imagery and meditation for healing for Total Care Home Health Care agency. Her Masters in Transpersonal Studies focused on new modalities for healing, changes in consciousness and cross cultural healing.

“The Nurse’s Story” screenplay called GWYN adapted from Ms Gino’s book was completed by Mario Puzo in 1996. It was submitted to the major motion picture studios for a feature film or major TV series.

Ms. Gino was a keynote speaker at the National SIDS Convention in Dallas Texas in 1997, she was also a speaker at the Bereavement Convention in upstate New York, entitled “Helping Families Cope with Grief” in Tarrytown, NY.

The trade paperback edition of “Then An Angel Came” was released in 1998 by Kensington Books.

She began her own publishing house called Starwater Press Ltd. in 1987 to publish spiritual and angel books and tapes long before they were in mainstream consciousness. Since then she has also started aah-ha! Books (Help for Hard Times – clear and simple) for her more mainstream titles.

She was the long time companion of author Mario Puzo and worked and played on Long Island, New York with her children and grandchildren.

After Mario Puzo’s death in 1999, she kept a promise she’d made and finished his book “The Family.” That book was published by Harper Collins, Regan Books, in 2001. Carol did several articles and appeared on the Today show to talk about The Family which was also a best seller.

In 2005, Carol moved to the countryside outside of Austin, Texas where she now lives and writes both fiction and nonfiction books.