All the way back to the 1700’s with political colonist Thomas Paine and the Common Sense Pamphlet, we’ve been using the spoken or written word to express opinions on matters that we care deeply about.
Here in the twenty-first century, various social platforms give us a multitude of ways to do the same thing. I have one particular issue.
It stems from an evening that, yes, I went down that Instagram rabbit hole ( must have been there over thirty minutes) and came across some posts from nurses, one in particular that had a significant number of followers.
This same nurse had a handful of rants about staffing inequities, but all in all, when I went to her feed, she had about a ten to one ratio of posts with the former being polished selfies attached to superficial comments and the latter 10% being strong words about the significant staffing crisis and shortage of supply needs in our hospitals.
Now, there are great finds on Instagram: Nurses that post only educational material, Nurse that stick to ‘clean’ humor and cartoon pieces, and yes, the nurses that find the time to demonstrate the use of TikTok in the hospital setting. ( I can’t for the life of me, figure out how that gets done.)
When we speak, we either educate, entertain, or express our opinion on matters that mean something to us.
I think it’s the timing that gets me.
If you’re going to yell about what’s going on, yell loud and long. Do some homework so you have facts to back up the significance of the problem going on. Double check and ask yourself, Am I just venting?
I would have no problem telling the nurses projecting how well their scrubs flatter their figure or are doing TicTok on hospital time that they are doing no service to the profession. Call me an old fuddy duddy. I’m calling it like I see it.
And for anyone who’s reading this and going Hmmm, and your blog… consistent ??? I started this blog over seven years ago. There’s enough material to get the tone of my voice
Below are some nurses that are making a difference.
Melissa Early BSN, RN, QMHP, NHDP-BC, CCEMP-P , Richmond, Virginia Mental Health Consultant – working with multiple hospitals on changing the narrative around mental heath needs for professionals
Schola Matovu, PhD, RN, MSN – through her research is focusing on ways to decrease the health inequities on a global level.
Justin Gill, DNP,ARNP,RN, Washington State / Chair of the Legislative Health Policy council Washington State Nurses Association – working to improve safe staffing level legislation and participant in the COVID Vaccine and Equity Project.
You can easily find these above professionals via their work in American Journal of Nursing, MyAmericanNurse.com, ImpactVirginia.org, or https://rnaction.Org
Thank you for your time in reading this post.