RN Greg Mercer of Arlington, MA has called for a boycott on the State of Arizona in response to the Amanda Trujillo case. He is collecting signatures on change.org, here is the what they say:

BOYCOTT ARIZONA FOR NURSES AND PATIENTS

After multiple invitations to a civil dialogue regarding AZ BON, Governor Brewer has not replied or addressed any of the issues raised. In fact, the only response to date hase been an increase in the seeming intimidation and abuses of power directed at a nurse, Amanda Trujillo, whose seemingly frivolous and abusive case before the Board has languished unresolved for a year to date, leaving her unemployed and impoverished.

Ongoing research suggests serious corruption in both local nursing management and BON functioning, with many serious conflict of interest, intolerably poor accountability and transparency, and a system that allows for and even tacitly encourages abuses of power. All these concerns threaten the ability of Nurses in Arizona to meet their ethical and professional obligations, and thus threaten patient education and safety. Nurse Amanda Trujillo’s case is but one example.
While reasonable people can disagree on the interpretation of the case that led to her firing, no informed person can reasonably doubt that this case shows the regulation of Nursing in Arizona to be inadequate at best, and harmful to the public safety at worst. Read more…

[You can watch a video by Carol Gino about the Amanda Trujillo case to get up to speed.]

A long time ago when I was in nursing school and then when I taught nursing, I remember making care plans. A large portion of the work our student nurses did was to make care plans for their patients. This was an integral part of their clinical experience.

During post clinical conference, which was at the end of each clinical day we went over what happened that day. We also discussed how well the students were able to follow the care plan. How we could improve our care and make patients feel better?

The main focus of our discussion were the patients, their symptoms and how to help them feel better. Each one of our care plan goals started with, “Patients will…..”. We emphasized patient education and their well being.

That was a long time ago. I’d think that nursing would have come a long way by this time. I’d think by now nurses would be celebrated as patient advocates and liaison between all the different groups that come in contact with the patients, including the physicians. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. Read more…

Carol Gino, New York Times’ bestselling author and nurse leader advocating for Amanda Trujillo.

Read more…

A forest fire is destructive and dangerous, it wipes out all that is good and healthy and beautiful. It exerts its power and overwhelms everything in its path.

In nursing many of us come to a point in our career where the fire has overwhelmed our soul and we haven’t realized it or stopped to take a moment to appreciate the toxicity of the smoke surrounding us. We may fail to do the important growth work that is so integral to how we care for others. We forget to periodically evaluate our own forest—to look for the old and the brittle, the dry bushes, the dry earth, the lack of flora.

When we care for others it is so easy to forget what your forest looked like when you began your walk on the nursing trail. Our time is devoted to service for thirty six hours and then we go home for four days and spend half of that catching up on sleep and then the rest of it running around like mad to get all of our errands taken care of, the bills paid, the kids to where they need to be. Keeping our insides nourished is not on the priority list. Read more…