Something Powerful

Tell The Reader More

The headline and subheader tells us what you're offering, and the form header closes the deal. Over here you can explain why your offer is so great it's worth filling out a form for.

Remember:

  • Bullets are great
  • For spelling out benefits and
  • Turning visitors into leads.

DiversityNursing Blog

Life After Retiring As A Nurse

Posted by Erica Bettencourt

Tue, Apr 10, 2018 @ 09:53 AM

retireSome retired Nurses have a difficult time figuring out what to do with their new free schedule. There are those who are looking forward to permanently taking time off from work. They’ve been waiting for this time to finally relax, take it easy, and indulge in hobbies.

Some Nurses, on the other hand, prefer to continue some type of work or activities after retirement. Here are some job ideas for the retired Nurse who still wants to work a little bit.

reviewer for Nursing Licensure Exams

To be considered a full-fledged registered Nurse you need to pass the Licensure exam. Being a reviewer comes with flexible hours and good pay. Not only that, you gets to help out a new generation of Nurses fulfill their dreams of being professional nurses.

Freelance Nursing Writer

Nursing writers create content for test prep courses, instructional manuals, and other training materials. If you're interested in this sort of work, other terms to search for are, Nurse Certification Writers, Nurse Research Writers, Learning Development Writers, and Medical Writers.

Teach Health Classes In Schools

Nurses teaching health classes in high schools is common. They know the topic and have first-hand experience with actual cases and are just about the most qualified in teaching subjects like sex education and nutrition.

This can be a very rewarding job for a retired Nurse since he or she doesn’t need to take on fully loaded schedules and can also work part-time in the school clinic.

School or summer camp nurse

Nurses who love kids couldn’t ask for a better position. Schools and summer camps often hire RNs to provide basic care for their staff and students. They will avoid the hectic atmosphere of hospitals but still practice their medical skills in an energized environment.

Nurse Educator

Many opportunities exist for Nurse educators outside of the hospital setting. Common settings for Nurse educators include medical device manufacturing companies, community clinics and government offices, pharmaceutical companies, research facilities, textbook publishing companies, and, of course, colleges and universities. The opportunities are rapidly expanding due to the growth of online jobs, and the possibilities for self-employment.

Nurse Bill Auditor

Perform audits of medical records to identify over-payments/underpayments. Must be a licensed RN with excellent communication skills, 3+ years’ clinical experience, and at least one year of reviewing/auditing experience. Mostly remote, freelance role.

There are many opportunities for Nurses thanks to all the life skills and experiences that the profession provides. So long as you keep your eyes peeled and your spirit positive, the right opportunity will come your way.

Topics: retirement, retiring nurse, retired nurse

Disaster Response Gives Retired Nurse New Purpose

Posted by Johnson&Johnson

Thu, Oct 12, 2017 @ 11:12 AM

NP-DN_4.jpgArticle from www.discovernursing.com

With the many horrific disasters happening across the country, have you considered how you can help? Of course you have. You’re a Nurse and that’s what you do – care for others. This is a terrific interview of a Nurse who retired a year ago and is now volunteering for the Red Cross. Her skills are desperately needed. Perhaps her story will inspire you.

Mary Yoshino, FNP, wore an identification badge for years that told the world who she was and what she represented in the healthcare community. When she retired from being a nurse, Mary wasn’t sure what her next step would be, but she knew she wanted to continue to help people.

Currently, Mary is on the ground in Houston, Texas, volunteering in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, an extremely destructive Category 4 Atlantic hurricane that made landfall in southern Texas in August 2017. We recently had the opportunity to speak with her to learn more about her career and her current role as a volunteer disaster response nurse.

Nursing Notes (NN): Can you share a little bit about your nursing background?

Mary: All my life, I wanted to be a nurse. As a student nurse at Johnston-Willis Hospital School of Nursing in Richmond, Va., I became very active with the American Red Cross by taking and teaching classes. Since graduation, my nursing career has spanned 47 years in all areas of nursing and multiple states. I have worked in intensive care units and emergency rooms, college health services, and the Army Nurse Corps Reserve. I went back to school to become a nurse practitioner in 1990, and then worked as a family nurse practitioner for 26 years before retiring last year at the age of 69. I took this past year to reflect on what I wanted to do in my next phase of life.  

NN: What made you want to volunteer during Hurricane Harvey, and how did you get involved?

Mary: I received a text from my son in Friendswood, Texas, saying that his home was taking on water and that he and his family were evacuating. That morning, I signed up to volunteer with the Red Cross. I was so desperate to help people again and was deployed out of Albany, N.Y., to Houston with a team of four other nurses.

NN: What are your day-to-day responsibilities as a volunteer nurse?

Mary: Currently, I’m a supervisor for a 460-resident shelter facility. We’re responsible for going from cot to cot, making rounds and assessing residents’ health needs daily. We are doing dressing changes, distributing over-the-counter medications, and calling for prescription refills. Some of our patients are very sick; yesterday alone we called 911 four times. We talk to our patients, hear their stories, and hold back our tears as we wipe away theirs. Our day is busy. There’s no time to sit, and very little time to eat because our patients’ needs come first.  

NN: What is the most rewarding aspect of this volunteer role?

Mary: The most rewarding aspect is to see the gratefulness in the eyes of the people we help. They come in feeling dehumanized, as they have lost all that they hold dear. Some cry and some are quiet, but they see that we care and we talk to them about the realness of their situation and ask them quietly how we may help them. Today, I was with a woman who teared up and said, "You really care, don't you?" A kind smile, manners, and showing respect goes a long way.

NN: What did you take away from this experience?

Mary: This experience has inspired me to go back and work in our local Red Cross chapter, to be a spokesperson for the Red Cross and to encourage others to volunteer. Even on a local front, there are so many ways to help.

NN: What do you wish others knew about the impact that Hurricane Harvey has had on citizens and communities?

Mary: My team has seen firsthand the destruction around Houston and realized just how real this hurricane was and how it has changed the lives of so many. As other breaking news has developed, people here are still feeling the effects of Harvey and are coming together in the communities that were hit the hardest. In my son's community, all homes were destroyed, but they went door to door helping each other. It’s about people helping people.

NN: What advice do you have for other nurses who are interested in disaster response nursing?

Mary: Let's do it!!! Be there, hold a hand, wipe a tear, make people feel human and safe again. Think back to why you became a nurse, and let those reasons once again come to the front. Let's go make a difference.

NN: Is there anything else you’d like to share about this experience?

Mary: When I retired from nursing, I broke down emotionally. I did not know who I was besides a nurse practitioner. The Red Cross has given me my life back. I feel like I have found my niche. I came to Houston and realized that I can still make a difference. I will return home in mid-October after having been in Houston for a month. In November, I hope to be deployed somewhere again. This time, I will go in knowing I have the confidence to lead and make a difference for the victims of a disaster.

To learn more about volunteering as a nurse through the Red Cross, visit www.redcross.org.  

sign up for newsletter

Topics: first responders, retired nurse, natural disasters, disaster response

Retired ICU Nurse Has Stories For Days

Posted by Erica Bettencourt

Mon, Apr 10, 2017 @ 02:58 PM

Trini.jpegJokester, Trini Moad Snow, was a Nurse for over 40 years. She's now retired at age 91 but, talks about her happy days at work and the path to her passion. Moad Snow recalls picking vegetables after high school so she could save up enough money for Nurse training and that one time when she cut off an executive's tie! If you're interested in more of Trini's stories continue reading below. 

When Trini Moad Snow retired, she decided to play a prank.

It was at a luncheon put on in 1992 by the staff of Mercy Medical Center, now Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Nampa. Moad Snow, standing next to a hospital executive, pulled a pair of scissors out of her pocket and cut off the tie around his neck.

"I said, 'I never did like your ties,' and I cut it off!'" Moad Snow said, laughing.

"He said, 'You cut off my tie,'" she continued. "I said, 'I know, I don't like your ties.' I thought he was going to faint."

 

The people watching roared with laughter. Then, Moad Snow pulled out a box containing a nice, new tie and presented it to the executive, who gave her a hug.

"I get a card from him, every once in awhile," she said.

At 91, Moad Snow lives a laid-back life of retirement in Caldwell. She recalls tales from her nursing days that are usually tinged with humor and make her and her audience laugh. Moad Snow has the direct, matter-of-fact attitude you expect from a nurse, and her passion for her more-than-40-year-career is evident.

"I never did go to work unhappy," Moad Snow said. "I loved my work."

Moad Snow holds the distinction of having helped set up the first intensive care unit in Nampa at the Old Mercy Hospital, at a time when intensive care looked different from it looks like today. She saw the evolution of the nursing field from medical advancements to the style of uniforms.

Back in 1946, nurse training school cost Moad Snow a mere $75, a fact she likes to point out incredulously.

In today's dollars $75 is about $995, but that is still cheaper than a nursing student would pay for a semester's tuition at the College of Western Idaho, let alone three years of schooling.

 

To earn the money to train to be a nurse, Moad Snow, along with her friend Mickey Maybon, picked vegetables in the fields after graduating from Marsing High School. She swears she can still feel the cold lettuce in her hands as she packaged it for shipping.

When they finally earned enough money, they went into training at the old Sisters of Mercy hospital in Nampa.

Nursing was not at the top of Moad Snow's list of careers. She went to nursing school because Maybon convinced her to go. When she was almost finished with training, she had an interview set up in Seattle for an airline stewardess job. But a nun at the hospital turned her plans around.

"She said, 'Trini, you gotta give us a year. You owe us that,'" Moad Snow recalled.

She ended up working in the office of Dr. Warren B. Ross for the next eight years, then went to work at Old Mercy Hospital, an institution where she spent the rest of her career.

Moad Snow was a head nurse in the mid-1960s when she was walking down the hallway with two doctors who asked her if she likes to travel. They told her the hospital was setting up a new kind of unit that was becoming common all over the country, and she could go to New York to learn all about it.

"It wasn't really new; we took care of very ill patients out on the floor," Moad Snow explained. "But what was beginning to happen was they were beginning to group these patients into one area, and they called them 'intensive care units.'"

The new type of care would require nurses to have special training in things like the monitoring of patients' heart rhythms.

Moad Snow was told when she came back to Nampa that Old Mercy's intensive care unit would be fully set up and ready to go; all she would need to do was train the nurses. It didn't quite turn out that way.

 

"I came back, and I'll never forget ... I went home and cried that day," Moad Snow said.

One of the nuns at the hospital took her downstairs and showed her where she would set up the intensive care unit. She had two small rooms, and to wheel a patient out to the elevator to the surgical department she had to physically move her nurse's station desk.

Thankfully, that set-up was not permanent. Three months later, in September 1968, the Mercy Medical Center opened.

Although Saint Alphonsus is preparing to replace that facility this summer when it opens a new medical center nearby, the hospital was modern for its time, Moad Snow said, especially the ICU.

When the ICU was still in its early years, Moad Snow traveled to Russia to observe intensive medical care. She noticed they had a different policy than she was used to: Family members were allowed to stay nearby with the patient, as opposed to being kept at a distance. It broke all the rules Moad Snow learned, but it made such a difference in the patients' treatment and recovery.

When she got back to Idaho, Moad Snow tore up her rule book and let families visit patients in the ICU.

"It just made everything so much better," she added.

Moad Snow's career saw the application of new medical procedures.

She remembers the first time she watched a pacemaker get inserted. She thought the patient was going to die.

"And then when we got it connected and we saw that blip, and the patient's heart beating on the regular — it's pretty thrilling," Moad Snow said. "And I just couldn't get over how we could do things like that."

 

With all the changes, what hasn't changed about quality nursing is caring for patients, Moad Snow said.

"I still think there's a lot of care there. If you're a nurse, a good nurse, and you care about patients — I think they still have that," she said.

sign up for newsletter

Topics: ICU nurse, retired nurse

Recent Jobs

Article or Blog Submissions

If you are interested in submitting content for our Blog, please ensure it fits the criteria below:
  • Relevant information for Nurses
  • Does NOT promote a product
  • Informative about Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Competence

Agreement to publish on our DiversityNursing.com Blog is at our sole discretion.

Thank you

Subscribe to Email our eNewsletter

Recent Posts

Posts by Topic

see all