The Office of National Nurse
Imagine
A national spokesperson for the nursing profession,to be created by the United States Congress.
A Registered Nurse in an offical government position to represent nursing to the public, deliver weekly speeches promoting health education and the nursing perspective while focusing national attention on the nursing profession.
Imagine
Volunteer National Nurse teams responding in times of crisis, or helping to deliver health education to the public.
You may not have to imagine for much longer.
What started as an op/ed piece in the New York Times written by Teri Mills, an RN and Nurse Educator from Portland, Oregon has turned into H.R. 4903, a bill to create an Office of the National Nurse.
Let’s add our voices to the many who have already supported this new representation of our profession.
Visit the National Nurse web site for information.
And check out the totally cool “store” where your purchase can help fund the passage of this bill (do I sound like I live with a teenager or what?). Teri makes it easy by giving you easy access to your representatives and ideas on how to facilitate the ongoing efforts to pass this bill.
Keep up with the latest by subscribing to the free email updates put out by the National Nurse team.
Is your representative in support of H.R. 4903?
Now please excuse me while I take my own advice and go show my support….
Sheepish
April 28, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Call me biased, but this is a pointless initiative that is not in the public interest. Don’t you have a Surgeon-General who promotes public health already? This is a bill to create a state-sponsored Nurse Advocate, not someone who is truly interested in public health or patient care. My comments are here: The Paper Mask
I enjoy your other posts, but not this one.
Kim
April 28, 2006 at 10:29 pm
Hi Sheepish,
I’m posting this on both our blogs, perhaps to stimulate debate on both ends.
Thanks for commenting on my post! And, I have enjoyed finding your blog, in fact I intend to read more posts.
I’m glad you provided the link to your post.
Yes, you are correct that the Surgeon General has all these duties. (Note: Follow the link to Sheepish’s blog).
And you are correct that the Office of National Nurse is a vehicle to promote nursing. That’s one of the main “points”. We have an chronic shortage of nurses in the US. Part of the reason is that their aren’t enough nursing professors to handle the number of people who want to become nurses.
And we need nurses. I’m not sure the situation in Australia, but here it is very severe.
The US Public Health Service is a uniformed service, NOT a volunteer organization, as the volunteer National Nurse Corps would be.
I don’t want to work for the US Public Health Service, I prefer the private sector. But I have time to volunteer in my community, and the idea of being part of a National Nurse Corps is something I find very appealing.
And you could easily call it the “Office of the Nurse-Advocate” because when you advocate for nurses, you advocate for the health of the public.
And I agree with Dr. Crippen, nurses need to do nursing!! People are in the hospital because they need nursing care by….shock….nurses! : ) Basic, professional nursing care. From bedpans to ventilators to vaccinations to health education.
A national nurse would be a focal point for the nursing profession. A single, national representative to focus on nursing and their specific role and to give nurses a chance to volunteer in an organized fashion in their communitites.
So, we disagree, but in the meantime I have found an interesting new blog!
Dr John Crippen
April 29, 2006 at 1:09 am
Hi Kim,
I posted a version of this comment elsewhere, and expand it here.
I have to say I don’t have a problem with this proposed position, provided it is about promoting NURSING and not, as I fear it may be, about promting accelerated promotion out of nursing into roles that leave nursing “care” to others.
I can’t speak authoratatively on the US system. As you know, the Centre for Nursing Advocay, which must be the most superfluous organistaion in the USA, has no sense of humour. The way they acted to the mildy amusing Mattel Corp Nusrse Quacktitioner Doll makes me giggle.
In the UK we have desperate, desperate shortage of nursing care, and too many nurse-specialists.
I hope that a National Nurse figure in the UK might be someone who would restore respect (and decent pay) to the men and women who want to NURSE patients.
The old fashioned UK nurse was one of the most respected members of the community. We are loosing that now, and gaining a regiment of technocrats dressed in nurses uniforms.
John
Sheepish
April 29, 2006 at 3:48 am
Hi Kim - Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. I shall do the same.
I don’t disagree in the concept of a nurse advocacy group, merely the point that the state should be funding it. The Surgeon-General is not a doctor-advocate, the Attorney-General is not a lawyer-advocate, the Department of Justice is not a police-advocate, and the IRS is not an accountant-advocate. Why should taxpayer dollars go towards funding a self-interest group? If public health is the issue, that already falls under the purview of the Surgeon-General.
On the other hand, if a group of nurses want to start up a de-facto union, then they can feel free to do so with their own funding. To say that its primary goal is patient care is window-dressing. It’s primary goal is to attract more nurses and improve pay and working conditions. It is a union.
The second issue is of what such a body would do. It would be wonderful if it were to attract more nurses to the profession and retain them where they are needed - bedside nursing care. Unfortunately I fear that such a group would be hijacked into becoming a nurse-practitioner advocacy group.
We are just as short of nurses in Australia as the rest of the world is. The reason is two-fold (and unfortunately a vicious cycle).
1. Ward nursing is not as attractive or rewarding as it used to be (especially in scrooge-like public hospitals) therefore the only way to attract them into the profession or retain them is to offer a promotion pathway - i.e. managers or nurse practitioners.
2. So many registered nurses are becoming managers or “specialist nurse consultants” that there are none left to do essential ward nursing.
Perhaps later I will suggest a way to solve this. You won’t like it, but there is a way.
regards,
Sheepish
Goepp-Watch
April 29, 2006 at 9:18 am
This is very much needed. A nursing perspective would be valuable!
You may like our new post abut oral abuterol and kids.
Thanks for this great post!
Dr. Deb
April 29, 2006 at 10:34 am
Any kind of advocacy and getting people together is good in my book. The more noise the better. It raises awareness. But, I hope that it doesn’t get tainted or controlled by the government. Too much red tape, and political finances have done awful things to great causes.
Sheepish
April 30, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Hi Kim, you make some good points as always. I like playing the devil’s advocate. (I’ve also posted a copy of this on my blog where you left your ).
Kim writes: “There is no way there could ever be a national nurses union because the individual states would never go for it.”
1. If each of your local unions do not want to band together, then surely that means that there is either no need or no interest in a national union to campaign for working rights. A “National Nurse” would therefore be a government-sponsored position campaigning for something that is not necessary or not wanted.
“We actually have more applicants for nursing school positions than we can handle. If we can make the position of nursing professor more attractive (a beside nurse makes more!), perhaps those with the gift for teaching would consider it.”
2. What happened to the apprenticeship or trainee model of teaching? It has disappeared in Australia, just has it has in the US. No longer do we have student nurses, state-registered nurses, and fully-registered or Div-1 or Div-2 nurses, each of which would train each other. All nurse training has been trasplanted to universities, where the amount of bedside teaching is dramatically reduced.
Sure, I think that it is great that nurses now learn basic anatomy and physiology, but do they really need to write a masters thesis on the psychosocial aspects of radial artery cannulation?
Nursing professors are very rare here in Australia. Each hospital has Clinical Educators. Unfortunately, my experience is that most of these are people who have dropped out of bedside nursing because they were not as good as they thought they were, and want to grandstand in front of young nursing students, and spend a lot of time instilling distrust with the medical profession.
At the end of they day, I don’t learn surgery from a Professor of Surgery. I learn from everyday, ordinary surgeons. Why do you need so many Professors of Nursing when there are so many fully qualified nurses about?
Has this shift to university-based training occurred during your career, Kim? Do you think it has been for the better or worse?
“What should upset physicians more are the use of “Physician’s Assistants” who act like a doctor, talk like a doctor, and are able to prescribe just like a doctor - and yes, they are overseen by doctors.”
3. Thankfully we do not have PAs in Australia. I would be happy if we never have PAs in Australia. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Nurse Practitioners are becoming. Doctors have progressively delegated their work out, and this is how each of the allied health specialties (Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Dietetics etc) have developed. So far the relationship has been harmonious. Not so with Nurse Practitioners. Why? I don’t know.
“Oh, and trust me, nurses here in the US do NOT gravitate to management. To be a manager is the WORST thing in the world. Those who do, God bless them. If they want to get away from the bedside, they leave the profession. Management, promotion ladders….not here.”
4. Unfortunately it is commonplace in Australia. The ANF sees it as a means to gain more influence in the health sector overall, and also provide a promotion pathway for senior nurses. After all, what comes after working as the Director of Nursing at a tertiary hospital?
I have no doubt that we need more nurses. Unfortunately there are many factions in nursing politics that are pushing personal agendas and want nurses to supplant doctors. It is unhealthy, and unproductive for the health system. I fear that this “National Nurse” campaign is not as public-health minded as you may think it is.
My god, I think I’m turning into AngryDoc
Sheepish
April 30, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Hi Kim, you make some good points as always. I like playing the devil’s advocate. (I’ve also posted a copy of this on my blog where you left your last comment).
Kim writes: “There is no way there could ever be a national nurses union because the individual states would never go for it.”
1. If each of your local unions do not want to band together, then surely that means that there is either no need or no interest in a national union to campaign for working rights. A “National Nurse” would therefore be a government-sponsored position campaigning for something that is not necessary or not wanted.
“We actually have more applicants for nursing school positions than we can handle. If we can make the position of nursing professor more attractive (a beside nurse makes more!), perhaps those with the gift for teaching would consider it.”
2. What happened to the apprenticeship or trainee model of teaching? It has disappeared in Australia, just has it has in the US. No longer do we have student nurses, state-registered nurses, and fully-registered or Div-1 or Div-2 nurses, each of which would train each other. All nurse training has been trasplanted to universities, where the amount of bedside teaching is dramatically reduced.
Sure, I think that it is great that nurses now learn basic anatomy and physiology, but do they really need to write a masters thesis on the psychosocial aspects of radial artery cannulation?
Nursing professors are very rare here in Australia. Each hospital has Clinical Educators. Unfortunately, my experience is that most of these are people who have dropped out of bedside nursing because they were not as good as they thought they were, and want to grandstand in front of young nursing students, and spend a lot of time instilling distrust with the medical profession.
At the end of they day, I don’t learn surgery from a Professor of Surgery. I learn from everyday, ordinary surgeons. Why do you need so many Professors of Nursing when there are so many fully qualified nurses about?
Has this shift to university-based training occurred during your career, Kim? Do you think it has been for the better or worse?
“What should upset physicians more are the use of “Physician’s Assistants” who act like a doctor, talk like a doctor, and are able to prescribe just like a doctor - and yes, they are overseen by doctors.”
3. Thankfully we do not have PAs in Australia. I would be happy if we never have PAs in Australia. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Nurse Practitioners are becoming. Doctors have progressively delegated their work out, and this is how each of the allied health specialties (Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Dietetics etc) have developed. So far the relationship has been harmonious. Not so with Nurse Practitioners. Why? I don’t know.
“Oh, and trust me, nurses here in the US do NOT gravitate to management. To be a manager is the WORST thing in the world. Those who do, God bless them. If they want to get away from the bedside, they leave the profession. Management, promotion ladders….not here.”
4. Unfortunately it is commonplace in Australia. The ANF sees it as a means to gain more influence in the health sector overall, and also provide a promotion pathway for senior nurses. After all, what comes after working as the Director of Nursing at a tertiary hospital?
I have no doubt that we need more nurses. Unfortunately there are many factions in nursing politics that are pushing personal agendas and want nurses to supplant doctors. It is unhealthy, and unproductive for the health system. I fear that this “National Nurse” campaign is not as public-health minded as you may think it is.
My god, I think I’m turning into AngryDoc
Change of Shift: Vol. One, Number 21 // Emergiblog
April 4, 2007 at 6:01 pm
[...] I can’t believe it has been an entire year since I first heard about the campaign for a National Nurse. In honor of the anniversary, I will link to my original post from April of 2006. If you haven’t visited the site, please do and consider making a donation to what has developed from a grass-roots organization into a bona fide Political Action Committee! I explain why in “The Office of National Nurse”. [...]