Nurse Mentor

In the last week, I've done more nursing for non-family members than I have in several years. I left hospital practice twelve years ago to focus on research and teaching the next generation of nurses. I suspect there are many nurses out there like me who can contribute in non-traditional ways. Here's some guiding principles for helping reduce public fear and panic and help people be proactive in their self and family care. 1. Evidence-based practice : The CDC is the best source for COVID-19 information as well as the World Health Organization. Neither has a political agenda to advance so you can trust what's reported there. This is critically important for dispelling disinformation about the disease and death rates. 2. Be consistent your information on social media : The more consistently you calmly respond to people's anxiety and fears on social media, they will calm down and make better decisions. We all know that people in crisis make poor decisions and lash ou...

Information Is Beautiful is a data visualization company. They've developed some really helpful infographics about the COVID-19 epidemic and how it affects people. There's good news in there too - most people recover. Check out the graphics here .

In case you haven't heard, 2020 is the Year of the Nurse and Midwife as declared by the World Health Organization (WHO)!  This is the first time WHO has taken this action. They chose to do this to help increase support and recognition for nurses and midwives around the world.  Later this year they will also release the state of the world's nursing and midwifery report which will tell us a lot about our colleagues in every country around the world. What's also really cool is we have a way to connect with our colleagues around the world through Nursing Now!, a non-profit organization based in the United Kingdom that is spearheading the global movement to build youth leadership in our profession, make nurses and midwives more visible, and help us all connect together. You can learn more about and join the movement here .

Emergency preparedness nurse expert Tener Veneema, PhD, RN, FAAN provides a great overview for nurses and midwives about the coronavirus COVID-19.

Over the last ten years, this blog continues to generate traffic so we are back in 2020 to highlight key issues around developing your nursing career and other hot topics related to the profession in the US and abroad. Here's some popular topics from past posts based on the 52,000+ visitors who have found it. Getting your PhD in Nursing  - There are four posts in this series so be sure to check them all out. The Post-Doc Question The Faculty Search Process Loan Repayment Mentoring is about supporting people in their career development and facing the day to day issues of their career. I hope you find this blog useful!

Developing a country's ability to produce nurses as well as grow research led by nurses is an important component of building health system capacity overall. For many nurses who see an academic or policy career path in their future, studying for a PhD is an important career step. If your a nurse who wants to do a PhD in the United States (US), here's some helpful advice to make your application as strong as possible and answer some common questions applicants have when developing their applications. To begin, prospective students may wish to review previous blog posts I've written about applying for a PhD more broadly. These include choosing a program , family considerations , and finances . One thing that is really important for an international student to understand is the difference between a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and a PhD in Nursing. Faculty with a DNP and no PhD are not allowed to serve as primary mentors when obtaining a PhD. This is because most DNPs ...

Happy 2019! Much to my surprise, I realized I went all of 2018 without posting anything. I got tenure in 2018 so technically, I should have had more time with that monkey off my back. Yet as a wise colleague told me, tenure usually means more work. Sure enough. Nonetheless, let's start 2019 off fresh with a burning question I get from many of my PhD students: To post-doc or not to post-doc. For those of you not in academia, I post-doctoral fellowship (post-doc) involves additional training. You see, science has evolved so much these days that despite doing a PhD for 4 to 7 years, you might need more training. I went into my post-doc reluctantly. After 5 years of PhD study, I was really hoping to have a just one job and a regular salary that might actually allow me to travel and start paying down my student loans. A post-doc just seemed like more years being poor. It was, however, the best decision I ever made. I was lucky to have a great mentor who passed along many wonderf...