Nurse Talk won four 2012 Communicator Awards for our series IN MY DAY with Lynn Ruth Miller. We won in every category we entered! Congratulations Lynn Ruth for winning the gold for Best On Air Talent! Silver awards were won for Audio Editing, Audio Production and Writing.

The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program recognizing big ideas in marketing and communications. Founded nearly two decades ago, The Communicator Awards receives over 6,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world. As we enter our 18th season, we’re also introducing expanded online and mobile categories, making this year’s awards bigger and better than ever.

The Communicator Awards honors work that transcends innovation and craft - work that made a lasting impact, providing an equal chance of winning to all entrants regardless of company or agency size and project budget. If your work moved people we want to give it a chance to take home a Communicator.

The Award of Excellence, our highest honor, is given to those entries whose ability to communicate positions them as the best in the field. The Award of Distinction is presented for projects that exceed industry standards in quality and achievement.

Who is Behind the Communicator Awards?

The Communicator Awards is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Airtype Studio, Big Spaceship, Conde Nast, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, Lockheed Martin, MTV Networks, Pitney Bowes, rabble+rouser, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Time, Inc, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo! Read more…

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With us this week is D.C. Correspondent and National Nurses United Legislative Advocate Donna Smith. Donna gives a great answer to the question–why don’t we see the following headlines in the media?

• “For Profit Healthcare Poses Threat to Medicare, Federal Deficit, and Overall Economy in Coming Decades”
• “Social Security Trust Fund Even Larger Than It Was Last Year”
• “Growing Wealth Inequity Will Lead to Social Security Imbalance Later This Century”

Read more…

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On the show this week is RN, humorist, author Terri Tate. What makes all the wrong things funny? Terri Tate will tell you. Terri claims that humor saved her life. Most people wouldn’t find two bouts of disfiguring oral cancer, 30 plus hours of surgery, 7 weeks of radiation, endless complications and a 2% chance of survival all that funny. Terri wasn’t laughing the whole time but claims that her sense of humor never completely deserted her. Nineteen years after treatment—alive and laughing, Terri talks about her remarkable path and her new book, As Is.

Wiz kid Cameron Harris is stops by for a visit. Some of you may remember Cameron, at the ripe old age of sixteen, started a podcast company (Harwood Podcast Network) that now boasts over 900 different shows. The line up includes IN RANGE Cameron’s show with his advice about how to live a healthy active life with Type 1 Diabetes. Cameron himself was diagnosed at the age of eight.

Also with us is D.C. Correspondent and National Nurses United Legislative Advocate Donna Smith. Donna gives a great answer to the question–why don’t we see the following headlines in the media?

• “For Profit Healthcare Poses Threat to Medicare, Federal Deficit, and Overall Economy in Coming Decades”
• “Social Security Trust Fund Even Larger Than It Was Last Year”
• “Growing Wealth Inequity Will Lead to Social Security Imbalance Later This Century”

Read more…

I usually write an inspiration to nurses on my blog and who knows maybe that is what this will end up being, but I feel the need to write about my experience yesterday and the decision that is solidified for me. I work in the ER, in case you hadn’t gathered that from my blog already, and have done so for the last 11 years. The ER can be a roaring beast that devours all in its path…or at times can be a gentle beast that lets those working there stay alive to come back another day.

Yesterday was one of those days that just makes you want to find a corner to cry in. We had 2 nurses call out—so we were short staffed from 7am -7pm and the patients just kept coming. Our supervisory staff were all off to conferences so there was no physical help available from them. The rest of the hospital was dealing with their own issues and had no nurses to spare…(which makes me think of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in the public bathroom and asks the women next to her if she could spare a square…and sure enough the woman says NO!) Any way…

Our amazing team that worked yesterday pulled together and we got the job done and we did it very well! BUT for 12 hours we didn’t get a break…we ate sandwiches, sent to us from our cafeteria, on the run. We had full rooms and a full waiting room all day long so there was no break to be had when a patient was discharged…just another patient put in the bed. Read more…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:43 — 49.2MB) | Embed

Let’s give a warm welcome to our new co-host RN Shayne Mason. We are so glad to have him with us and just to show our appreciation we had all kinds of studio chaos waiting for him. Three in-studio guests, advice from our retired co-host Maggie McDermott, technical difficulties and more. Shayne took it like a pro! Not to mention he brings to the show a wealth of medical expertise and, of course, a grand sense of humor.

Shayne holds an RN, BRN, NP, is an instructor at USF (University of San Francisco) and a psych nurse at a clinic in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. That psych background will come in handy!

On the show this week is RN, humorist, author Terri Tate. What makes all the wrong things funny? Terri Tate will tell you. Terri claims that humor saved her life. Most people wouldn’t find two bouts of disfiguring oral cancer, 30 plus hours of surgery, 7 weeks of radiation, endless complications and a 2% chance of survival all that funny. Terri wasn’t laughing the whole time but claims that her sense of humor never completely deserted her. Nineteen years after treatment—alive and laughing, Terri talks about her remarkable path and her new book, As Is.

Wiz kid Cameron Harris is stops by for a visit. Some of you may remember Cameron, at the ripe old age of sixteen, started a podcast company (Harwood Podcast Network) that now boasts over 900 different shows. The line up includes IN RANGE Cameron’s show with his advice about how to live a healthy active life with Type 1 Diabetes. Cameron himself was diagnosed at the age of eight.

Also with us is D.C. Correspondent and National Nurses United Legislative Advocate Donna Smith. Donna gives a great answer to the question–why don’t we see this headline in the media: “For Profit Healthcare Poses Threat to Medicare, Federal Deficit, and Overall Economy in Coming Decades”

Read more…