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Nursing Attire and Patient Perception

Published

on November 17, 2011

A Brief History of the Nursing Uniform

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Nursing Attire and Patient Perception Nursing has long been a female-dominated field, and it has undergone drastic changes in the past 100 years. However, images of those early nursing days (young women in white dresses and hats) have remained, whether as part of society’s tendency toward sexual objectification or by patients who actually remember a time when nurses were portrayed a certain way.

These days, nurses are often indistinguishable from other medical professionals—and researchers have yet to determine whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Almost all care providers wear the same kind of colorful scrubs, which are built around comfort, and there are no differences for men and women. This can be difficult on some patients, since they might have a difficult time determining if they are being approached by a college-educated professional or by a supplementary staff member.

Several studies have been done to look at how nursing attire affects patient perception (and therefore patient care), most notably in the 2006 Journal of Nursing Administration and a 2008 Applied Nursing Research report.

Some of their key findings include:

Scrubs tend to make nurses appear less professional but more approachable.
Almost all generations prefer simple white uniforms to indicate nursing staff; this is especially true for elderly patients.
Pediatric nurses are the exception; on them, colorful uniforms are considered ideal.

For nursing students and new nurses, these findings might not seem conclusive enough to make a wardrobe decision, especially since you may be required to purchase and wear uniforms in keeping with the workplace dress code. You might not have the option of white scrubs, and you may be required to wear bright colors every day of the week.

However, what you can do is realize that your patients are affected by the way you look, regardless of whether you chose the outfit or not. Fun, whimsical scrubs might make you more appealing to younger generations, but older patients might not see you as the professional you really are. Plain scrubs are more likely to earn you respect, even if you’re a CNA on the first day of the job. And across the board, sexually ambiguous attire is best, as it takes an important step away from the early 20th century stereotypes that placed women in a less than professional role.

What is a Nurse Case Manager?

Published

on October 11, 2011

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Nurse Case Manager Within the nursing field, opportunities for job promotion and advancement aren’t as common as most people think. Most nurses work on a fairly level playing field, and although you might choose to specialize, chances are you won’t actually adopt a supervisory role without a real effort to get there.

One area in which you can set yourself apart and take on more responsibilities and management roles within the nursing field is to become an RN case manager.

What is an RN Case Manager?

Nursing case managers typically take a step back from being a hands-on care provider toward more administrative work. They oversee the admissions process for patients who need recurring care, often developing and coordinating plans for long-term outcomes. Similar to social work, in that the RN case manager works with an entire lifetime of care (and often in conjunction with other health and social services), there is nevertheless a much heavier medical focus.

Within a daily capacity, an RN case manager might:

Act as a liaison and advocate for patients, families, and the health care system
Create overarching care plans
Refer and admit patients
Coordinate medications
Provide/coordinate therapy and treatments
Evaluate plans and staff members
Dispense medical advice

Case managers work in hospitals, home health care organizations, nursing homes, hospices, insurance companies, and busy medical offices. Hospice and home health care are among the top employers for this type of work, since it is necessary to coordinate a long-term care plan that involves doctors, other nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and other care providers.

How to Become an RN Case Manager

First of all, all case managers must first become practicing nurses by attending a nursing school and getting the appropriate degrees and licenses. It’s typically best to have one or two years of experience before branching out into case management, though this isn’t always the case. There are some one-year programs that teach nurse case management above and beyond a two or four-year nursing degree, though these aren’t required to enter the profession, either.

The only accrediting body for case management is the American Case Management Association. Certification is voluntary, and requires the successful completion of their exam as well as meeting standards in education and work experience (2,000 hours of clinical practice and 30 hours of continuing education related to case management). There is also an annual fee to keep the certification current, and you can also opt for participation in the annual Association events.

Critical Care Nursing

Nursing Opportunities: Is it Better to Work at a For-Profit Hospital or Non-Profit Hospital?

Published

on October 3, 2011

Nursing Jobs that Aren’t in a Hospital

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For-profit and non-profit hospitals With the exception of government-run and VA facilities, hospitals fall into one of two categories: for-profit and non-profit organizations. As the names suggest, for-profit hospitals are those that are run as a business, dedicated to turning a profit for the shareholders. Non-profit hospitals, on the other hand, take monies earned and put them back into the company, whether for continued maintenance or expansion. In short, within a non-profit setting, company leaders make a salary, but they do not share in the profits of the organization.

When it comes to working as a nurse within the hospital setting, there are some subtle differences in the way for-profits and non-profits are run. These differences are not universal, but if you are choosing between two types of organizations, you may want to consider a few of these trends.

For-profit hospitals are businesses first, while non-profits focus more on the person. This means that when it comes to performance reviews, productivity, and accountability, for-profits tend to enforce a more numbers-based system. This is great for nurses who share the same traits, but may be an issue for nurses who prefer to think of their workplace as a community of shared interests and goals.

Non-profit hospitals have the advantage of providing built-in workplace motivation. Although most nurses get their job satisfaction from working with individual patients and families, there is also a larger contribution to the good of society to consider. When a hospital operates under a mission like serving low-income communities, it can contribute to higher feelings of personal growth in the workplace.

For-profit hospitals are better equipped to handle financial setbacks, but this might be done at high costs. Because they almost all have long-term financial plans in place, for-profit hospitals tend to know where they can make cutbacks to avoid having to close their doors for good. However, this could be done at the cost of staffing ratios, and nurses may be asked to take on larger workloads to compensate for a bad fiscal year.

Accountability tends to be higher in for-profit hospitals, and nurses who may not be pulling their own weight in the team setting are more likely to be reprimanded for their actions. This can lead to a smoother workplace, where everyone is required to pitch in according to their job description and salary.

For many professionals coming out of nursing school, it will be virtually impossible to tell the difference between for-profit and non-profit hospitals. Both are dedicated to a high quality of care and keeping their employees happy, and only after a few months or years will these subtle differences be evident.

If you feel very passionately about one or the other, be sure and tailor your job search accordingly. Both for-profit and non-profit hospitals can provide a long-lasting and satisfying career, but knowing what to expect is a great way to ensure that you find the right professional nursing fit for you.

Related Topics:

Ethics in Nursing

Nursing and Malpractice Insurance

Published

on September 21, 2011

Forensic Nursing and Legal Nurse Consulting

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Nursing and Malpractice Insurance One of the things new nurses are commonly told is that they’ll need to purchase malpractice insurance before they can start working at many hospitals and other health care organizations. In some cases, the employer (or state licensing board) requires the insurance; in others, it’s simply good business sense.

No matter how hard nurses work or how careful they are with their jobs, mistakes can and do happen—and in some cases, patients or their loved ones may choose to take action. Malpractice insurance is your layer of protection against a personal suit that could cost you your savings account or even your home.

Why Nurses Need Malpractice Insurance

In addition to workplace requirements, nurses are liable for their patients in cases in which negligence can be proven. In this situation, “negligence” can mean many different things, including making an error in dispensing medication, failing to respond to a call light, or even having an oversight in care caused by exhaustion or overworking.

While this might seem like it opens a Pandora’s Box of possibilities, only cases in which the negligence can be proven in a court of law are those that require a financial payout. That’s good news for nurses who aren’t guilty of the lawsuit against them. In the meantime, however, you might be stripped of your license, be required to pay for a lawyer, and be forced to stay away from work until everything is settled.

What Does Malpractice Insurance Cover?

Depending on your policy, you can expect different levels of coverage. Good policies will cover all your legal fees and expenses; even better ones might also compensate you for time you were forced to spend away from work, including lost wages, lodging, and even meals.

Some employers have their own coverage, which is used to cover all of their staff as a blanket of protection. In these cases, you might be tempted to forgo the personal malpractice insurance altogether. Be wary, though, since the limit might not be very high or there may be an indemnity clause that holds you responsible above a certain payout limit.

The sad truth is that nurses—good and bad ones—get sued all the time. When this happens, the damages aren’t only financial. You’ll also get reported to the Board of Nursing and potentially lose your license. While prevention is certainly your best course of action, it always helps to be prepared and have a professional safety net there to catch you.

Personality Traits of a Good Nurse

Published

on September 14, 2011

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Traits of a Good Nurse Although the current nursing shortage in the United States pushes a lot of people to consider nursing as a career, it’s not the type of job that’s suited to everyone. Like teaching or social work, this profession is one that can quickly wear down a person who is not 100 percent committed to making a difference. If this is a field you’re interested in, you might want to take an internal look to see if you’ve got the personality suited for nursing.

Caring Personality: Nurses, by definition, are caregivers. They provide both physical and emotional care to patients, families, and other stakeholders in health. Being concerned about the well-being of others is one of the most important traits you can have. This includes traits like empathy and compassion.

Detail-Oriented: The health care field is one that pays very strict attention to details. All patient care is charted and documented, and nurses often have to juggle several patients all at one time. Being focused and able to work through mountains of paperwork are key.

Emotional Strength: Nursing can be heartbreaking, devastating work. Patients die, babies suffer life-altering diseases, and families break down before your very eyes. If you don’t have the capability to handle this kind of devastation (or if you don’t have a support framework in place to help you), this might not be the right job for you.

Physical Strength: Nursing is also physically demanding work. You’ll most likely be on your feet, moving through the hospital, and lifting patients through the whole eight hour shift (if not longer) every day. Being strong and healthy and paying attention to your overall health are important in avoiding burnout.

Flexibility: This can be a fast-paced field that is always changing and shifting—and you have to be prepared to change and shift along with it. The ability to make fast decisions and adjust to circumstances can go a long way in boosting your success.

Great Communication: You will spend your days navigating relationships between health care providers, patients, family members, advocacy services, hospital administrators, law enforcement, and a range of people who are both emotionally and financially invested in the health care outcomes you provide. A good nurse is able to handle all of this on top of an already heavy workload.

The good news for those who don’t have all these traits is that this list is primarily focused on practicing nurses in a clinical setting. If you find that some of these qualities aren’t exactly your style, you can always turn to academic nursing (research or public health development) or other fields (such as forensic nursing in a legal setting or even hospital administration).

Related Topics:

Nurse Interview

Is Nursing For You?

Term Papers and Projects to Expect in Nursing School

Published

Staying Healthy While in Nursing School

on September 6, 2011

in Nursing Education

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Nursing School Projects From the moment you start doing your undergraduate coursework to the time you apply to nursing school, there is a heavy emphasis on the sciences and on math. Starting with the very first day you decide to be a nurse, you’ll learn biology, chemistry, anatomy, statistics, and physics—and all with hands-on laboratory work like dissecting frogs and cow eyes.

Although this can seem overwhelming, it’s something most nursing students are prepared for, and the hard work is just part of the challenge of reaching your professional goals. What many students aren’t prepared for, however, is the other kind of work that you’ll be taking home: term papers and group projects.

Depending on where you are in your education, you might end a quarter of nursing ethics with a ten-page research paper, or spend an entire nursing theory course working with a team to create posterboard presentations, power points, and other large projects. These can be time-consuming and work-intensive, but a passing score here is just as important as it is during your clinical rotations.

Why Nursing Schools Include Papers and Projects

It might seem unfair to spend most of your time writing a paper when you’ll never be asked to write again, or to work with a team of nursing students who might not be willing to pull their own weight for a group presentation. However, these are common parts of the nursing curriculum. The reasons for this vary, but typically include:

Group Challenges: Being a nurse is very much a team effort. You’ll be working with doctors, therapists, nursing aides, and other nurses to provide a high quality of care. Some of these team members will be great; others will not. Getting used to working in a team setting—with all its challenges and setbacks—starts in nursing school.

Critical Thinking: Writing a ten-page report or paper requires quite a bit of planning, research, organization, and dedication. The focus here is not so much on how well you write or how good your grammar is—it’s on seeing whether or not you can pull together several different components to reach a whole.

Academic Learning: If you’re going to nursing school to get an MSN or even a BSN, you are going to be entrenched in the academic setting whether you like it or not. In many cases, you might even wish to go on to be a nursing instructor, nursing administrator, or research nurse. Having a background of academic learning and scientific documentation will really help boost this part of your career.

As is the case with any academic challenge, the key to writing successful term papers and doing well on your nursing group projects is to plan ahead and get the work done before the last minute. Nursing school is still very much a school, and although you’ll be drawing blood and seeing patients fairly early on in your education, you still need to focus on the textbooks and papers that will provide the foundation for learning for the rest of your life.

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Work-from-Home Nursing Career Opportunities

Published

on August 31, 2011

Nursing Salaries- Getting Paid What You’re Worth

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Work From Home Nursing Jobs In today’s health care setting, it’s becoming more and more important for employers to offer a better work-life balance—especially while nurses remain so much in demand. In fact, in order to entice quality candidates to work for their companies, some employers are offering nurses the chance to work from home. Whether you’ve always dreamed of spending the work day in your pajamas, or if a childcare or other situation demands that you scale back the amount time you spend away from home, here are a few work-from-home nursing options to consider.

Telehealth (Triage): The most common type of nursing-from-home position is telehealth, or triage. In this career option, Registered Nurses provide answers to health questions via inbound phone calls, make outbound calls to patients with chronic conditions, and are a general source of 24-hour support. Many types of health care providers (insurance companies included) use this kind of professional to augment their health services. Not only does it save doctors from middle-of-the-night phone calls, but patients often feel like they have better control over their own health when they know they can call a nurse and get an immediate response. In many cases, a triage nurse is also able to save health care companies money by allaying patient fears for minor complaints, thereby saving a trip to the emergency room.

One of the most interesting aspects of telehealth is that it hearkens back to an age when doctors made house calls and health was a community issue. Instead of the distance between patient and health care provider, these friendly (and skilled) professionals come into a patient’s home, if only via the telephone, and become a partner in health and wellness.

Medical Transcription: Medical transcription was one of the first health care careers to offer job flexibility and at-home options. These professionals take notes and recordings made by physicians and put them into electronic medical records. Although this job can be done on site, more and more health care professionals are moving their offices back home.

Although there is a separate medical transcription degree (which is usually shorter in length than a nursing degree), nurses interested in the field may be able to find good positions. Because nurses have both the education and the hands-on experience to know how the health care field works, they tend to make excellent transcriptionists.

Case Management: When an individual is injured on the job or as part of everyday life, they often make a disability claim (either through the government or the workplace). In order to process and evaluate these claims, a case manager is assigned, much in the same way an insurance agent will come out and make inspections for a house or auto claim. Oftentimes, this extends beyond the filing of the claim to include a regimen of care that must be followed up on. Although there may be some travel involved in this type of position, it can be done largely from home.

Nurses make great case managers because they are able to work with patients, doctors, other nurses, and therapists. They can evaluate homes and situations, and make the proper recommendations for the future. In most cases, an RN license and/or a background in insurance is preferred for this type of work.

As is the case with any type of at-home work, nurses should always take care to avoid scams or jobs that seem too good to be true. Working from home as a nurse is a possibility, but the good positions are like any other in the field; they require a nursing degree, a regular interview process, and regular check-ins with a supervisor.

Related Topics:

Home Nursing Career

Nursing Opportunities through the Department of Veterans Affairs

Published

on August 19, 2011

How to Become a Travel Nurse

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Veteran Affairs Nursing One of the best places to go for new jobs in nursing is at your local VA hospital or Veterans Affairs office. In addition to traditional nursing roles, professionals working for this government-based organization take on tasks related to patient safety initiatives, travel nursing, clinical nurse leadership, and polytrauma care. That’s because in addition to serving the general health needs of the average population, VA nurses are also called on to help with special cases and health initiatives.

VA Opportunities for Students

Nursing students are in an ideal position to take advantage of VA job benefits. In addition to supporting nurses currently pursing their education, VA hospitals offer clinical rotations in affiliation with nursing schools. There are also many entry-level career options for those hitting the job market for the first time.

Once program that’s worth looking into is VALOR, the VA Learning Opportunities Residency, which takes on senior-year BSN students who need to complete their clinical hours. While the actual tasks aren’t that much different from clinicals in a traditional healthcare setting, an estimated 50 percent of nurses who do their clinicals here go on to work in the VA setting. That’s because part of the training component includes the practices, policies, and regulations set out by the Department of Veterans Affairs, and they like having employees already familiar with the setting.

Another option for nursing students who have just graduated is to consider becoming part of the VA Travel Nurse Corps (TNC). Like other travel nursing opportunities, nurses in this program are relocated every few months to a new hospital where staffing needs are high. However, unlike traditional travel nursing, the nurses here are only placed in other VA hospitals. The amount of training and orientation time in each new location is almost nonexistent, since the policies and technology are the same across the board.

Why Consider a VA Nursing Career?

Although working in a VA setting isn’t for everyone, it can be a good career choice for those who want the stability and benefits of working for a government organization. In addition to the nursing student opportunities listed above, nurses can enjoy tuition reimbursement options, scholarship programs, and a large allowance of vacation and sick leave.

For more information, you can visit the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Nursing Services at http://www.va.gov/nursing/About_ONS.asp.

Related Topics:

Nursing Job Descriptions

Nursing Recruitment Bonuses: Are They Worth It?

Published

on August 8, 2011

Nursing Career During a Recession

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Nursing Sign On Bonus Although most people open the job ads only to be faced by a pretty grim prospect, nurses have the advantage of being in one of the most in-demand careers on the market. In fact, in addition to the regular advertisements for open positions, you might even find employment ads that promise recruitment or employment bonuses—and often to the tune of thousands of dollars.

For new graduates and experienced professionals, the appeal of signing on for employment with a $5,000 or $10,000 check already in hand is strong. However, before you agree to work for any health care corporation, it’s important to check the fine print and understand the employment situation. After all, there’s a reason these companies are short on staff, and bonuses almost always come with contractual obligations, so you can expect to be held to the contract for the duration of your term.

Here are a few questions to answer before you make a decision:

Is the bonus split or spread out over time? In many cases, a bonus will be split in half or divided into graduated increments (for example, 10 percent up front and the remaining 30 percent every three months). This is typically done to ensure that you don’t take the bonus, work your contractual time, and leave the organization hanging. However, you want to be sure that there aren’t other stipulations that will prevent you from getting your money.

If I leave the position, do I have to pay the bonus back? Read carefully to determine how long you are obligated to stay at the organization without getting a penalty. A $3,000 bonus might look appealing…until you learn you have to stay in the job for the next five years or risk paying it back.

Is compensation lower to make up for it? Even with a generous sign-on bonus, the other aspects of the job should be comparable to market standards. Rates of pay, retirement packages, insurance and health benefits, time off, overtime…none of them should be cut back or reduced to make up for the bonus. A bonus is meant to go on top of everything else, not in place of it.

What is the employer like, bonus or not? Look into the employer as you would any organization with which you’re signing a contract. Talk to existing employees, check the level of patient care, and spend some time doing your research. The point of a sign-on nursing bonus is to recruit top talent, but top talent should also want to sign on there because it is a good place to work.

Nursing students in a position to consider a sign-on bonus are in a good position because they have choices. You can choose to work for a large hospital, a small clinic, or a high-need office in an urban center. You can work part-time, full-time, or as a travel nurse. And as is the case with any choice, it’s important to look into all the aspects and make the decision that will suit you best for the long term.

Related Topics:

Nursing Salaries: Getting Paid What You’re Worth