Nurse Mentor

OK nurse friends and colleagues, can you find your passion and have a greater impact than you already do? Go for it!   See this story for an example of how to get started.   Passionate nurses at every level, from the front lines everywhere to management and academia are what attracts people to our profession and taking advantage of the many career options available to nurses in the United States and many other countries.

NY Times 10/15/2013 October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.  Over the last few years, I have too many friends diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 50.  I'm sure you've seen all the ads on TV, heard them on the radio, gotten hits from internet ads about breast cancer awareness in the United States. What you probably don't hear too much about is the global burden of the disease.  The New York Times highlighted the issue with an excellent report about the challenges low and middle income countries face when trying to treat the disease and its after effects.  The infographic above  comes from the article and shows the scope of the disease. You'll need to scroll down a bit in the article to get to this graphic and the others that further explain its pattern.  Cancer's impact goes just beyond the individual.  Much like the cellular mutations that generate the disease, it touches the individual, family, community, and national health system.  Wh

Every so often a news story linked to a research study comes out with health care statistics that blow my mind.  I read a lot of research so when that happens, it's pretty rare. Kaiser Health News released this story about "super utilizers" in the US healthcare system.  A "super utilizer" is an economic term for a patient who is constantly using healthcare services.  This happens because they do not have good care coordination, lack health insurance, and often have multiple chronic disease conditions that are costly to treat.  Key quote from the article: "These patients are among the 1 percent whose ranks no one wants to join: the costly cohort battling multiple chronic illnesses who consumed 21 percent of the nearly $1.3 trillion Americans spent on health care in 2010, at a cost of nearly $88,000 per person. Five percent of patients accounted for 50 percent of all health-care expenditures. By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of patients accounted for j