DiversityNursing Blog

Martie Schultz

We found a story about a Nurse who has been in the profession for decades and she’s still working a couple days a week. She is an inspiration and we hope you’ll enjoy it.

SeeSee Rigney, an operating room nurse at Tacoma General Hospital in Tacoma, WA, celebrates her 90th birthday with her coworkers, and six decades of nursing. She is an inspiration to all! God bless you my friend. We love you and can only hope to have half of the energy you have at your age.

Posted by Brooke Olson

healthecareers.com 

Nursing is one of the most prominent — and much needed — professions in the healthcare industry, with over three million registered nurses worldwide. This number is set to grow over the coming years, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicting that employment of RNs will grow 19 percent in the decade leading up to 2022, faster than the average for all occupations.

This growth will be fueled by demand for healthcare providers for the aging population, the federal health insurance reform, and the increase in chronic medical conditions such as diabetes and dementia that require care. While more nurses will be required to provide care for patients across the country, there will also be more competition for the top nursing jobs.

If you’re keen to maximize your chances for the role of your dreams, read on for some top tips for using social media sites to further your career in 2015.

Network on LinkedIn

One of the best sites for networking is LinkedIn. Millions of professionals and businesses around the world use the social media platform, and as a result it’s the perfect place to network with key people in your industry and further your career in the healthcare industry.

To start yourself off on the right foot on LinkedIn, make sure your profile is completely filled out. A comprehensive profile that will get you noticed on LinkedIn will include a business-suitable photo and your skills and achievements you have acquired during the course of your education and career.

LinkedIn makes it easy for you to ask for recommendations to go on your profile from people you’ve worked with over the years, whether co-workers, bosses or clients. In addition, don’t forget to optimize your profile and job title with relevant keywords, as this can make a big difference in search results.

Once you have your information up to date, it’s time to start working on adding connections. Apart from making requests to connect with people you already know, it’s also a good idea to join relevant LinkedIn groups and participate in discussions about any topics where you can contribute useful information or an unusual insight — this is a fantastic way to generate interest from potential new ones. In addition, regularly sharing interesting articles and information with all of your connections and update LinkedIn with your career successes and new skills is a great way to stay engaged with your current contacts.

Create a Personal Brand

Social media is a great avenue through which to promote your personal brand. Blogs, Twitter, and Instagram, for example, are all fantastic platforms to use to get your name out there and develop a brand for yourself. Although you might only associate the word “brand” with businesses, developing your own personal brand is a great way for many professionals, especially contractors, to promote themselves.

Build a consistent personal brand by ensuring that you always use the same font, image, language, and even logo, on any online profiles. Creating and maintaining a distinct voice will set you apart from others, helping you to stand out in a competitive industry.

Showcase Yourself as an Industry Expert

Blogs, LinkedIn and Twitter in particular are great platforms to demonstrate your ability to be an industry expert, and is used by many workers to foster relationships and build a profile in their industry.

Publish relevant and engaging content on your blog and distribute it on social media to showcase your experience, skills, and knowledge of healthcare to potential employers and contacts. In addition, share pictures, infographics, quotes, links to articles your connections might find helpful or informative. It’s important to stick to posting about your industry and/or specialty, and refrain from posting personal information in order to build a loyal following and give employers an idea of your passion and what you might offer their company.

By networking, building a personal brand, and showcasing yourself as an industry expert via social media, you will set yourself up to generate more interest when you apply for jobs, and can even bring employers directly to you.

Want a career in nursing? Search hundreds of nursing jobs across the U.S. today!

By Erica Bettencourt

When did you first know you wanted to be a Nurse?

This story is very touching about a patient’s perspective of Nurses at a very young age. Her experience with the Nurses who cared for her over the years, made Nursing an obvious choice for her.

Laurie Lukianov, 26, is a woman from Massachusetts who received two liver transplants as a child and is now working to become a transplant nurse. She told Boston Children's Hospital's blog “There is no question in my mind. Since I was 3 years old, I wanted to be a nurse.”

Laurie was born with biliary atresia and she needed liver transplants to save her life. At 3 years old she made headlines when she became one of the first patients in the country to receive a liver transplant from a living donor -- her father, Alex Lukianov.

When she was 13, Laurie Lukianov needed a second liver transplant. It came from an organ donor, and she had to fight for her life.

"I had 13 emergency surgeries from the two-week span from the initial transplant," Laurie Lukianov said.

But she won the fight and continued on to good health with the help of her family, a great surgeon and nurses.

Now the mother to a 6-year-old boy, already works in a local emergency room and is finishing her first year of nursing school.

Laurie Lukianov is also an advocate for organ donation. She tries to let potential donors know that the medical staff will do everything to save a life. Sometimes modern medicine falls short but, the gift of life is never lost on the recipient. 

GENEVIEVE SHAW BROWN

abc news 

What happens when you bring preschoolers and the elderly together to share the simple things in life? This story and video are very touching. We think it’s a terrific idea to spread across the country.

It's being done at a preschool in Seattle, where child care takes place throughout a campus which is also home to more than 400 older adults.

Called the Intergenerational Learning Center, the preschool is located within Providence Mount St. Vincent, a senior care center in West Seattle. Five days a week, the children and residents come together in a variety of planned activities such as music, dancing, art, lunch, storytelling or just visiting.

And now this incredible place is about to have its own film. Called "Present Perfect," it was shot over the course of the 2012-2013 school year by filmmaker Evan Briggs, who is also an adjunct professor at Seattle University. Funded completely out of her own pocket and shot by her alone, Briggs has now launched a Kickstarter to fund the editing of the movie. She has more than $45,000 of her $50,000 goal with 15 days to go.

Residents of "the Mount," Briggs said, did a "complete transformation in the presence of the children. Moments before the kids came in, sometimes the people seemed half alive, sometimes asleep. It was a depressing scene. As soon as the kids walked in for art or music or making sandwiches for the homeless or whatever the project that day was, the residents came alive."

The kids, she said, took everything in stride. She talked of a moment at the beginning of the film trailer when a young boy, Max, is meeting an elderly man named John. John has to repeatedly ask Max his name, calling him Mack, Matt and Match. "That scene actually went on far longer that what you see in the trailer. But Max was just so patient, he just kept repeating his name over and over."

Interestingly, the parents of the students don't send their kids to the Intergenerational Learning Center primarily for the experience with the seniors. "It's got a great reputation and great teachers," said Briggs. But parents of kids who were in the class that she embedded herself in for the school year now tell her they see the benefit of the model. "One father told me that he especially sees it now that his own parents are aging."

She named the film "Present Perfect" she said, as a reference to the fact that these two groups of people — the preschoolers, who have almost no past and so much future and the elderly who such rich past but very little future — really only have a few years of overlap in their lives.

"It's also about being in the present moment," Briggs said, "something so many adults struggle with."

Briggs said the moments between the kids and the residents "sweet, some awkward, some funny — all of them poignant and heartbreakingly real."

Briggs hopes her film will open a conversation about aging in America. She writes on her Kickstarter, "Shooting this film and embedding myself in the nursing home environment also allowed me to see with new eyes just how generationally segregated we’ve become as a society. And getting to know so many of the amazing residents of the Mount really highlighted the tremendous loss this is for us all."

She called the preschool a "genius" idea that is "well within our reach" on a larger scale and hopes the idea expands to other schools around the country. "It's a great example of how we integrate the elderly into society."

Here’s an interesting option for people with Parkinson’s Disease to cope with the motor skills challenges they face every day. It’s another example of technology improving people’s lives.

Parkinson's Disease is a nervous system disorder that affects a person's movement. The most common sign of this disease is hand tremors. Other signs like stiffness or slow movement can also be common. Parkinson's Disease has symptoms that will worsen with progression of the condition over time. This disease has no cure but, medications or physical therapy programs can help improve symptoms. 

Google Glass was a failure. At least, according to most people. But not for one specific group: people with Parkinson's. They've been experimenting with new software for Glass and say that it improves the quality of their lives.

People suffering from Parkinson's have challenges with their motor skills. Joy Esterberg, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2003, compares the feeling to moving through mud. She was an early adopter of the Glass software, which has been in development for the last year. 

"It is very sci-fi," Esterberg said of Glass. "What I like about it is that I can wear it at home. You have the little screen, you see David dancing, and you can follow the moves." 

She's talking about David Leventhal, the director of the Mark Morris Dance Group's Dance for PD program, which has been offering free dance classes for people with Parkinson's since 2001.

When a user activates Glass, they can choose from a variety of different exercises, like "warm me up" or "balance me." Once selected, they see Leventhal or one of his co-teachers projected in front of them. 

This technology is especially important because when people with Parkinson's walk down the street, they sometimes freeze up. In order to get going again, they often need to watch someone else's movements or footsteps. This can be problematic, especially if there's no one around.

The software, called Moving Through Glass, is based off exercises done in Leventhal's weekly class. The movements have roots in ballet and modern dance, and include a lot of extension exercises, which are particularly helpful for people with Parkinson's. Some students are very mobile, while others are confined to wheelchairs and exercise with assistance. 

To get the Glass project going, Leventhal applied for a $25,000 Google (GOOG) grant. He got it, and then partnered with SS+K, a New-York based advertising agency with a strong focus on social responsibility. It developed the software for free through its innovation lab.

Though still in the pilot stage, it's hoped that the software will make people with Parkinson's more independent and confident when they go outside. 

"It's surprisingly un-weird," Esterberg said. "In New York, nobody is going to look at you if you have something on your face. You'd have to have orange feathers sticking out of it for people to notice." 

More and more of the students in her dance class will be using Glass as part of the program. There are about 50 people who attend each week in Brooklyn, and it's known as a place for camaraderie and acceptance. 

"Everyone comes to dance class for a reason," Leventhal said. "Some people come to escape Parkinson's. Some people come because they want to work on specific skills related to balance or coordination or musicality."

There isn't data on how successful the class has been, but Levanthal said he sees it in students' stories. One student, he said, had been able to dance at a family member's wedding thanks to the class. Esterberg said she dances better now than she did before Parkinson's because she practices every day. 

For now, the Glass software is still in the early stages, and the dance studio has 25 pairs available for students to borrow. However, the future is uncertain because Google stopped selling Glass earlier this year, saying it will focus on future incarnations. 

Whatever Glass 2.0 looks like, Leventhal said his students will have a lot of feedback and, no matter what, they'll still be dancing. Esterberg certainly will be, and said she hopes more people will see that a diagnosis doesn't have to mean giving up. 

"You can do new things," she said. "You don't have to just accept [that Parkinson's is] the end of everything. Because it really isn't."

Contributor: Jillian Eugenios and Erica Bettencourt

Story Source: CNN

By Pat Magrath – DiversityNursing.com

When you think of the nurses in your life – family, friends and coworkers – are they all female? For many years, this has been the reality. But these days, more men are getting into the field of nursing. A friend of mine, Esteban, and I were chatting about his 18-year career as a nurse.

Esteban grew up in Puerto Rico. His family came to the U.S. when he was a child. His father and brother are policemen, a field primarily dominated by men. When he talked to his mother about becoming a nurse, she wasn’t excited about it because “if you’re Hispanic and interested in becoming a nurse, it is assumed you’re gay.” When she realized his passion for nursing, she was supportive and advised him respectfully.

Esteban explained that, in his culture, there is “machismo.” The Urban Dictionary defines machismo as “having an unusually high or exaggerated sense of masculinity. Including an attitude that aggression, strength, sexual prowess, power and control is the measure of someone’s manliness.” With the nursing profession being predominately female, Esteban’s mother feared he’d be teased and not seen as a strong “man.”

In Esteban’s Hispanic culture, he explained, “female nurses are completely accepted with pride, but for a male nurse it is expected you’re gay. Machismo is very strong in the Mexican, Dominican and Puerto Rican cultures. More straight guys are getting into nursing now. It is changing because of the nursing shortage and shortage of jobs. For many, this is a second career choice when men couldn’t find work in their first career choice.”

Esteban’s family has been extremely supportive of his chosen career, particularly while he was pursuing his master’s degree online. He explained how important family support is. His family provided some meals, continually asked what he needed and attended his graduation. They are very proud of him.

English is not Esteban’s first language, so classes and homework were very difficult. If you’re Hispanic and thinking about becoming a nurse, he advises, “don’t procrastinate.” He explains, “you need time to research and support your articles.” With English as his second language, “it took more time to check my sources, read it, read it again, and… read it again. Then… write and re-write my papers. English-speaking people can take about a half hour. It took me three times longer.” He offers great advice about the support of family and the expectation that assignments will take longer to complete.

Think about taking classes online as an option in pursuing your nursing career while juggling a busy life.

Esteban’s proficiency in Spanish comes in very handy while working at the VA in Harlem as an RN Care Manager. He is often asked to translate for patients, and most of Esteban’s patients are male veterans and Hispanic. He said, “they like a Hispanic male nurse taking care of them.”

He has plans to continue his education in the fall of 2016 and work toward attaining his doctorate. While achieving his master’s through an online program, which served him well, he envisions taking his PhD classes in a classroom to consult with instructors and collaborate with others.

Whenever Esteban talks to people about becoming a nurse, he loves to point out that “as a nurse, you can work in any setting – hospitals, schools, insurance companies, etc. If you don’t want to be a bedside nurse, there are different places to work.”

Gracias for your insights, Esteban! We appreciate all your hard work and dedication.

And if you’re thinking about getting into this field, this is a great time to do so.

I’m compensated by University of Phoenix for this blog. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Erica Bettencourt

There is a need for diversity in the health industry, especially Nurses. Having more diverse nurses will improve access to healthcare for racial and ethnic minority patients. Also those patients will be more comfortable and have higher satisfaction. Diversity must be increased at all levels especially educational institutions. More cultural healthcare programs and initiatives should be offered for students.

By Carina Storrs

CNN 

Jenner's story, and others', is indeed bringing gender transitioning, which can involve surgery, hormonal therapy and behavioral changes, into the mainstream. "There's certainly a growing acceptance of gender diversity and understanding of how important [affirming internal gender] is," said Dr. Timothy Cavanaugh, medical director of the Transgender Health Program at Fenway Health.

It is estimated that one in 10,000 people who are born male feel their true identify is female or have a strong desire to be female. There are approximately 100 to 500 genital surgeries every year in the United States as part of gender transition, according to the Encyclopedia of Surgery. But that number could be growing. 

In the older generation, the demographic to which Jenner belongs, "I think many people thought their only option was to hide their internal gender or repress it [because] there wasn't a lot of social support or acceptance," Cavanaugh said. "With growing awareness, people in their 40s, 50s and up are coming to a place where they can do something about it," he added. 

But what does it mean to have gender transition procedures, particularly hormonal therapies and invasive genital and facial surgeries, for this older group, compared with transgender people in their 20s and 30s (which Cavanaugh says is the other common demographic)? Are there health concerns, or benefits, with undergoing physical changes later in life? 

Many transgender people take lifelong hormone therapy, and for transwomen (transitioning from male to female) hormones are estrogens and anti-androgens that block their body's testosterone. Jenner reported undergoing hormone therapy, along with a 10-hour facial feminization surgery and breast augmentation. The Olympic gold medalist and former husband of Kris Kardashian said she has not had genital surgery and it's unclear whether she will.

However, as people age, their bodies become less responsive to hormones, and estrogen's effects. Primarily, breast development and weight redistribution will probably be less dramatic in older transwomen compared with younger, Cavanaugh said. At the same time, doctors tend to prescribe a lower dose of estrogen in older women because of concerns of blood clots, and consequent heart attacks and strokes. 

"It may mean that it takes a little longer, that the feminization is not as vigorous, or the effects may not be as satisfactory in older transwomen," Cavanaugh said. However, physical changes do still occur, and they have clear psychological benefits for these women. (In transmen, or people transitioning from female to male, testosterone therapy is generally viewed as safer than estrogen and more effective, Cavanaugh added.)

Facial surgery can be part of gender transitioning for transwomen who have manly features, such as sagging brows that develop with age, said Dr. David Alessi, facial plastic surgeon and owner and director of the Alessi Institute in Beverly Hills, California. (He added that transwomen who have effeminate faces may not need surgery.)

It is possible to make the face look younger and more feminine at the same time, Alessi said. For example, lifting the brow makes it less saggy and removes wrinkles. But there are limits. "I can make a 60-year-old male look like a 50-year-old woman, but not like a 20-year-old girl," he said. 

The more difficult surgery, for all ages, is genital, and older transgender people have special challenges, Alessi said. In particular, surgeons create a vagina, typically using tissue from the penis. However, that tissue may die in its new location if it does not have good circulation, as is more common in older people, and the surgery would have to be repeated to graft tissue from the colon or mouth, Alessi said. "The goal is to do the genital surgery in one surgery, but more likely it takes two or three surgeries, and that is more likely in older patients," he said. 

There are also general problems with any surgery in people in their 60s and 70s. "Often they develop chronic medical conditions, such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, that makes surgery a little bit more risky" because it could exacerbate these conditions, Cavanaugh said

Gender transitioning does not always involve hormone therapy and surgery, however. Among people in their 20s and 30s, who may have more access to information online and to support groups, "we see a number of younger patients who say, 'I just need my identity affirmed,'" Cavanaugh said. They can sometimes achieve this goal through dress and social behavior and finding groups of like-minded people. 

"[Yet] there are always going to be people who really feel a disconnect between internal gender and anatomy, especially when interacting with the world, that it makes more sense and is really beneficial for them to masculinize or feminize the body," Cavanaugh said.

We found this interesting article about the growth of smartphone use and apps available to Nurses while at work. These apps are being used to research drugs, gather information about home care as well as diseases and disorders. This is an area that will continue to grow and hopefully provide much needed assistance to our hard-working Nurses.

A new survey indicates nurses are relying more than ever on their smartphone for clinical care – to the detriment of the so-called "doctor on call."

Conducted by InCrowd, a Boston-based market intelligence firm, the survey found that 95 percent of the 241 responding nurses own a smartphone and 88 percent use smartphone apps at work. More intriguing, 52 percent said they use an app instead of asking a colleague, and 32 percent said they consult their smartphone instead of a physician.

"The hospital gets very busy and there isn't always someone available to bounce ideas off of," one respondent said. Said another: "It's often easier to get the information needed using my smartphone – I don't have to wait for a response from a coworker."

Nurses have long been seen as an under-appreciated market for mHealth technology, and one that differs significantly from doctors, but that seems to be changing. Companies like Voalte are marketing communications platforms targeted at nurses, and even IBM has come out with a line of nurse-specific apps.

"There's a lot of untapped potential in the use of mobile apps for nursing," Judy Murphy, IBM's chief nursing officer, told mHealth News.

Unlike physicians, who are looking for apps that can retrieve information, enter orders and push notifications, nurses need apps that assist their workflow, offer quick information and coordinate multiple activities.

"It's all about care coordination," Murphy said. "Nurses want apps that can help them organize their day."

The ideal app will be simple in nature, so that it can be used quickly, and will help nurses organize several functions, from taking care of multiple patients to addressing orders from doctors, according to Murphy. Some tasks, like entering complex data into the EMR, actually clutter the form factor of the smartphone and are best handled at a workstation.

According to the InCrowd survey, nurses are quick to point out that their smartphones "enhance but don't substitute" for the physician, but when they're running around and need a quick question answered about medications, illnesses or symptoms, sometimes the app does the job more effectively – such as "in patient homecare situations when I need quick answers without making a bunch of phone calls," or "so I can make an educated suggestion to the doctor."

According to the survey, 73 percent of the nurses surveyed use their smartphones to look up drug information at the bedside, while 72 percent use it to look up various diseases or disorders. And befitting the various roles of the smartphone in the healthcare setting, 69 percent of nurses said they use their smartphones to stay in touch with colleagues. Other uses include viewing images and setting timers for medication administration.

Finally, the survey found that nurses are using smartphones in the workplace no matter who's paying for them. Some 87 percent of those surveyed said their employer isn't covering any costs related to the smartphone, while 9 percent are reimbursed for the cost of the monthly bill, 1 percent receive some reimbursement for the cost of the smartphone, and 3 percent are reimbursed for both the phone and the phone bill. Less than 1 percent, meanwhile, said their institution bans the use of personal smartphones while on duty.

"We're hitting the tip of the iceberg here with apps that a nurse will want and will use," Murphy said.

www.mhealthnews.com

Contributor: Eric Wicklund

We think this video and infographic are important to get out there to anyone you know, especially the young people in your life. It’s about melanoma and the fact that it strikes young people. It’s the 2^nd most common cancer in children and teenagers! Some great information and tips. Please share it.