About Me

My name is Kim McAllister, and I’m a registered nurse in the San Francisco Bay area. I graduated in 1978 with my ADN and have been a nurse for 32 years. My experience is predominately Emergency and Critical Care, but I have also worked in Telemetry, Psychiatry and pediatric telephone triage.

In May of 2010, I earned my BSN through the University of Wisconsin – Green Bay BSN/LINC program, with the goal of becoming a nursing professor / nurse researcher.

I made the decision to be a nurse in 1966, on my ninth birthday, after receiving “Cherry Ames, Student Nurse” from my great-grandmother. I was fortunate it was a book about a nurse; I could have received something like “Itchy Smith, Flea Detective” and my life would have taken a totally different route!

About Emergiblog

Emergiblog was born in the summer of 2005. I wanted to blog and figured I knew nursing better than anything else. I was a columnist for Nursing Jobs.org in the summer of 2007 and I served as a moderator on the Nursing Voices forum. I am also a member of the Better Health blogging network, and my work is occasionally featured on that site.

I write occasionally for “Advance for Nurses” (print) and am compensated for those articles.

In 2006 I started “Change of Shift”, a nursing blog carnival that runs bi-weekly and is hosted either here on Emergiblog or a host blogger’s site. I have hosted Grand Rounds five times.

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Thanks to The Medical Network Blog, I linked to Dr. Lei at Genetics and Public Health.

She encourages medical/health bloggers to answer the following questions recommended by The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The purpose of the questions is to give the readers of medical/health related blogs the ability to evaluate what they are reading.

The responses for Emergiblog are as follows:

1. Who runs this site?

Emergiblog is run by Kim McAllister, a registered nurse with a BSN degree and 32 years experience who has spent the last 20 years working in emergency departments.

2. Who pays for the site?

The site is provided to me through Three:Twenty Interactive, run by Shane Pike. I use WordPress as my blogging platform

Shane maintains the “look” of the site, assists me with placing advertising and acts as my consultant for internet issues/blog questions. I am fully responsible for the content on the site.

I, as well as my webmaster Shane, receive compensation from advertising arranged through Three:Twenty Interactive.

I have no financial interest in any of these companies, other than what they pay me to advertise on my site. As of this time, I have not received any gifts from any companies that advertise on Emergiblog.

Beginning in September, 2008, I have been working with Johnson & Johnson to bring a med/healthblogger track to BlogWorld/New Media Expo. This came to fruition at the 2009 conference, and we will be meeting again in 2010.  Johnson and Johnson are sponsoring this effort. along with MedPage Today.  From Johnson & Johnson, I have received  a pass to BlogHer 08 and I received an honorarium for speaking at their global communications conference in 2008.  The J&J widget on the right sidebar was placed by me because I find the content of the video page interesting; I was not compensated, monetarily or otherwise.

3. What is the purpose of the site?

The purpose of Emergiblog is to give me a forum to discuss my experiences as a nurse in the emergency department and other topics related to nursing. A Nascar post or the occasional NFL rant may slip in from time-to-time.

4. Where does the information come from?

It comes from my 32 years of nursing experience and my experiences as a BSN student.

The majority of my posting is anecdotal.

All patients, staff and hospitals are either composites or have identifying information concealed or altered to allow for patient confidentiality.

If you think you recognize someone on the site, you are mistaken.

When applicable, links to information sources are given.

5. What is the basis of the information?

Please refer to question number four.

6. How is the information selected?

The postings are based on what I want to write about and what I feel will be interesting to read.

7. How current is the information?

It could be as current as my last shift or as long ago as my childhood.

8. How does the site choose links to other sites?

My links are based solely on sites I have read and found interesting.

9. What information about you does the site collect, and why?

The site collects no information about anyone other than what is recorded on the site meters.

That information is used just for my own personal interest in seeing where my readers come from and keeping track of how much traffic Emergiblog generates.

As I am the administrator of “Change of Shift”, I use email addresses to send out a notice when a new edition is up; I have also instituted a email list for BlogWorld/New Media Expo.  To opt out of any emails, I ask that an email request be sent to me and the email is then removed.

10. How does the site manage interactions with visitors?

Hopefully they comment and I comment back! Spammers are blocked by using special software.

All opinions are welcome, however : Posts containing profanity or harassment are removed immediately.