woo-wee! Nursing blogs review part one
I've just spent several hours reviewing nursing blogs with the help of Google (hopefully, without government supervision of same, as some of the blogs are a trifle, um, explicit). Things I've learned so far:
1) lots of nurses don't like nursing much.
2) new nurses think old nurses suck and await the day we all retire with profound hopeful glee.
3) old nurses think new nurses suck and lament the wave of the future when they retire and the new crew takes over the ship.
4) some nurses use baby words to describe excreta. It's interesting, but unnerving.
5) excreta of all kinds and body fluids in general figure prominently on many nursing blogs. Leading one to wonder which came first: the attraction to nursing of people interested in excreta and body fluids, or the frequent exposure to same resulting in profound preoccupation in off-duty hours with writing about it all?
I have not yet come to any conclusions. I actually went looking at nursing blogs to find some to put in a permanent link section here, such as seen on many medical blogs (and parenthetically: how come all health-related blogs regardless of content or authorship are lumped under the category "medical"?). Sadly, although there are several nurses blogging with whom I would be proud to share a night-shift cup of coffee, there are many more who are, well, embarrassing. This need to describe in graphic detail the horrible incident of the body-fluid-of-the-day and the play-by-play details of how you made it through the shift seem so much wasted space to me.
I mean, other nurses already know all about it. So does the general public, who are the providers of the body-fluids you clean up and then run home to blog about. This public show of sardonic, jaded, burnt-out, "let's see who can be the most graphic and use the most vulgarity" rather petty storytelling doesn't show us to our best advantage, does it?
But of course, what do I know, old-timer that I am. :-)
Stay tuned for part two, I know there are good blogs out there to link to!!! Any suggestions welcome, by the way.
mary
posted by mary at 1:53 PM
6 Comments:
You obviously have a great deal of experience and some opinions that are well worth sharing.
After reading this post, I realized immediately that, as a nurse-blogger, I was fully guilty of blog-rolling both nursing and medical links under the heading of "Medical Blogs". Suffice it to say, that error of my ways has been remedied. Many nurses internalize the oppression that we experience in the healthcare industry and devalue our own contributions which are (thankfully) distinct from medicine.
Thanks for your candor (and your post to my site) and I look forward to reading your site frequently.
Hi!
I followed your link from Dr. Charles. I have a student nursing website with links if you are interested, most of the Nurse blogs I read do not talk about excreta very often. Even though I think I talked about baby poo in one entry (and I only use the term poo if it follows the word baby), I avoid those too. :)
I do find it interesting the differences between the newer nurses ( I won't say younger here only because, I'm 30 and and amoung the youngers in my class, Our oldest is 60, Good for her)
and the more experienced Nurses. Attitudes can be quite different but I think our goals are and always will be the same.
Thanks to both of you for your comments! I plan to spend a little time this weekend listing blogs, and I will be sure to include yours.
Jodi, believe it or not, one day you will be looking back wondering how time went by so fast, and saying things like, "In my day we never" or "would you LOOK at those uniforms, why in my time".
Just kidding.
But it does seem like only yesterday I was sitting in the lobby on the very first day of clinical thinking to myself "What are you? Crazy? Why do you think you can do this? Let me out!"
However, I had already paid for the uniform...
mary
lol
I've had a couple of days already where I had to berate myself for choosing this path. Fortunately, for me, The good days have outweighed the bad ones.
"In my day we never" or "would you LOOK at those uniforms, why in my time".
I look forward to the privilege of saying those things. :)
Mary,
I figure in 30 years those "newbies" will be the ones taking care of me, so I make sure they get lots of support so they will be around when I need 'em! LOL!
Reading about the student nurses on my blog makes me get re-excited about things like pathophysiology - I actually have started looking things up again....hey, there is a blog post in here somewhere!
LOL! And I promise the word "poo" will never cross my blog unless it is a direct quote! LOLOL
Its a great article. Nurses helping the doctors will operational should be professional trained.
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