Nurse Talk Blog Archive

Presidential Hopefuls. Nursing Master’s. Frying in Fresno. What’s So Funny?

January 25th, 2012 by Pattie Lockard

Dan and Casey say they have really made an effort to stay away from the presidential primary but sometimes it’s hard. Roll clips of two presidential hopefuls with one having more hope than the other! We’re just sayin’—one of these men might need to look into “anger management.” Just sayin’. Check it out…on the show this week.

AND we talk with Rob Horgan. Rob is a recruiter for the University of San Francisco School of Nursing and Health Professions. “As nurses” Casey comments, “we just happen to think USF’s nursing program is among the best in the country.” Rob joins Casey and Dan in studio (true) to share about the Master of Nursing Program USF offers at their Santa Rosa, California campus. We just found out a few months ago they had a Santa Rosa, California campus. P.S. Rob, if you are out there, thanks for being such a good sport and boy, are you quick on your feet!

Check this out! We share a great video that is up on a site called ProtestINTheUSA.org. The video titled “A Nightmare On Wall Street” depicts an imagined encounter between a Wall Street banker and the victims of financial misdeed. Oh, the horror!

And as the assault on public healthcare workers continues—things are heating up in Fresno, California with major cuts proposed by that county’s Board of Supervisors. RN Mary Morrison joins us to talk about the proposed cuts and the potentially devastating impact on yet another community.

Available now on Amazon

And later we’ll visit with one of our favorite people RN, MSN, Karyn Buxman. Karyn has been on the show before. You might remember her as a great nurse and public speaker—as well as a humorist who really does employ humor in the healing process. Her mission: To improve global health through laughter and help heal the humor-impaired! She’s here this week to talk about her new book “What’s So Funny About Diabetes.”

MYTH: Popping your knuckles will give you arthritis? True or False? The answer is planted somewhere in the text of this blog post. Find out!

And remember you can listen and laugh every week in the Boston area on station WWZN 1510AM every Saturday at 11 am EST or live stream at www.revolutionboston.com and in the San Francisco Bay area Sundays at 2PM PST on KNEW 960AM or live stream at www.960knew.com. Check out the iHeartRadio app for free and live custom radio. You can alsodownload and listen to any show anytime here at NurseTalkSite.com or on iTunes. Like us on Facebook, and you can listen there too.

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What’s So Funny About Diabetes: The Book!

January 24th, 2012 by Karyn Buxman

Author, Spearker, Nurse Karyn Buxman, RN, MSN, CSP, CPAE

I’m super excited to tell you that my latest book, What’s So Funny About Diabetes? A Creative Approach to Coping With Your Disease is now available!

What’s so funny about diabetes?

Maybe nothing. Then again, maybe everything.

Especially if you understand the premise that so much of our humor comes from pain and discomfort—our own, or somebody else’s. And let’s face it; if you’re a diabetic, you’ve got more than your fair share of pain and discomfort.

Currently one in 10 US adults has diabetes, but those numbers could go as high as 1 in 3 by the year 2050. A long-term solution can only come from getting people to change their lifestyles: better diets, exercise and coping mechanisms to deal with this serious illness.

Available now on Amazon

The good news: Humor and laughter have been shown scientifically to have positive benefits for diabetic patients. Laughter has been shown to lower blood glucose in diabetics, as well as decrease hormones that can be harmful. Humor is recognized as a healthy coping mechanism. And humor has also been proven to increase the retention of information.

For these reasons, and more, author Karyn Buxman has written the first in a series of books for patients with chronic illness: What’s So Funny About Diabetes? When you’re a diabetic, you need to arm yourself with all the tools that you possibly can to become the healthiest person that you can be. You need a large repertoire of skills. Humor isn’t the be-all, end all; it’s not meant to replace your medical regime, but rather to be a complement to all the efforts you’re already making.

Now Karyn Buxman shows you how you can strategically use humor everyday to better manage your diabetes and live a healthier and happier life. And you don’t need to be funny. You just need to be able to see funny.

“If we took what we now know about laughter and bottled it, it would require FDA approval,” says psychoneuroimmunologist, Dr. Lee Berk. The perfect gift for yourself or someone you love, this book is filled with wise, witty, and life-saving advice. Whether you are a diabetic, a pre-diabetic, or the cheerleader for a diabetic, there is something in this book for you.

This article was originally posted on Karyn’s site at www.karynbuxman.com.

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Naughty Politician Lane, Fair Taxes plus Karyn on AIDS and Wilda on Alzheimer’s | Show 413

June 15th, 2011 by Pattie Lockard

Rep. Anthony WeinerWhat up with male politicians?? Twitter, Facebook, bathroom stalls, mountain trails, pay-offs borrowed from Mom and Dad!! Yikes can anyone imagine a female in high office getting away with any of this? Barbara Boxer tweeting bra-less photos of herself to a 21-year-old guy?? Join Casey and Dan for a walk down “naughty politician lane.”

And more discussion about the role nurses are playing in leading the voice of opposition to cuts in Medicare and Social Security and fighting for taxation on wall street transactions. Listen, we are not talking about about persecuting those who do business on Wall Street—we are simply calling for a fair transaction tax in the amount of a half a penny per. Our D.C. friend and expert on all things Capitol Hill, RN Donna Smith is with us to make sense out of the sometimes senseless.

Later in the show Casey and Dan talk with RN, MSN, humorist Karyn Buxman. Karyn reminds us that in July we acknowledge the 30-year anniversary of the first diagnosed case of AIDS. Karyn shares about the fear, lack of understanding, treatment and protocol in hospitals, and shame surrounding the patients. We’ve come along way—but where are we now?

We welcome an old friend to the studio, RN Wilda Ruthier. Wilda is traveling around the country with her partner Bonnie in their RV–doing anything they please! They stopped by to visit and we literally dragged Wilda into the studio and made her speak. Sad–but we did. Years ago Wilda started the first of its kind, Alzheimer’s assisted living facility in Burlington, Vermont. This was before anyone really knew what it was. She and her staff worked on treatment protocols that are still used in facilities around the country. Congratulations to her innovation and years of care and service to others.

A big salute to all of our RN friends from the Massachusetts Nurses Association!

You can listen in the Boston area on station WWZN 1510AM every Saturday at 11 am EST or live stream at www.revolutionboston.com and in the San Francisco Bay area Sundays at 2PM PST on Green 960AM or live stream at www.green960.com.

You can also listen anytime right here on NurseTalkSite.com and iTunes. Like us on Facebook, and you can listen there too.

Remember “laughter is the best medicine.”

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“Really” A Nurse

June 13th, 2011 by Karyn Buxman

Author, Karyn BuxmanHow long does it take before you feel like you’re a “real” nurse? Orientation may be long behind you, yet you’re still not 100% confident in everything you’re doing. We seem to be missing that official rite of passage or seminal event that allows us to recognize ourselves as fully competent, skilled professionals. With that in mind, I thought I’d share the top ten signs you can use to determine if you’re officially a “real” nurse yet:

Sign One: You have seriously contemplated asking Pharmacy to send up some Superglue to keep your combative patient from ripping his Foley out…again!

Sign Two: A trip through a Halloween Haunted House or viewing of 1001 Grossest Things Ever reveals that you’ve permanently misplaced your gag reflex. Testing this by opening random dishes in the staff refrigerator can confirm the loss, but does run the risk of releasing toxic airborne pathogens native to abandoned tuna sandwiches. Proceed with caution!

Sign Three: You buy SCUBA gear and take lessons even though you live in landlocked Kansas, solely so you can go find and pull the plug on the Gene Pool.

Sign Four: You have to physically restrain yourself from doing violence to a colleague who uses the dreaded Q* word to describe the unit. Your colleague, being a nurse themselves, instantly apologizes when they realize what they’ve done.

Sign Five: Your wardrobe consists of scrubs, scrubs, and more scrubs. Formal events leave you wondering if clogs are *really* appropriate for the opera.

Sign Six: You never miss an opportunity to use the bathroom. This makes your weekend getaway to the country a stunning tour of every john for twenty miles. The trip takes nineteen hours!

Sign Seven: When an administrator asks how you feel about electronic charting, you cite how wonderful it is to be able to record mistakes faster. You smile the entire time you say this, and the administrator nods and agrees with you, never noticing what you actually said. You are not surprised by this.

Sign Eight: Armed with only casual ‘shop talk’ you manage to clear an entire restaurant of customers – and the waitress goes home early with an upset stomach!

Sign Nine: You know the date of every full moon for the next three years, and have requested them all off. Astronomers call you to verify their predictions!

Sign Ten: The EPA has seized your shoes and uniform at the end of a shift, proclaiming them too great a biohazard to be exposed to the world at large. But they’re sure you’ll be fine…

*The Q word: Shhhhhh… Quiet!

Yours in laughter!

Karyn Buxman

 

 

This article was shared with us by NurseTogether.com.
Based in Charlotte, NC, NurseTogether.com is one of the fastest-growing, free online professional communities for nurses. Specializing in unique nursing lifestyle, career and professional development information, NurseTogether.com’s mission is to empower the nursing community through top-quality original content from experts, interactive web-based social media tools, and value-added services through key strategic partnerships in a variety of nursing and lifestyle disciplines.

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RN Karen Higgins on What’s Up in DC and RN Karyn Buxman, Speaker. Author.”Freakin’Funny” | Show 310

December 9th, 2010 by Pattie Lockard

“Oh my there is so much happening in the news these days Dan,” says Casey. Dan responds with “lets see if we can RAP IT ALL UP Casey.” Well, you have to check it out..they do indeed RAP IT UP.

Obamacare, don’t you dare,touch my junk, its not fair,pat downs, radiation,don’t ask…don’t tell,debt panels, medicare,social security go to hell,unemployment, that’s OKbut don’t take my tax cuts away,people, people where does it go?the republicans got it…JUST SAY NO!

But, on to the real stuff. Casey and Dan have a great conversation with our friend RN Karen Higgins about the recommendations that came from the President’s Debt Reduction Panel. What Karen has to say is shocking, at the very least, and should make all of us stand up and take note. We are NOT in the business of spreading fear but we do want to shine the light on the continued assaults on the working class in our country. If you are a nurse—can you imagine working in the ICU or any other department in a hospital when you are 69 or 70? Think of what it takes to get through your shift now—when you are still physically strong—add a few years and who’s lifting who?

Brace yourselves! Karyn Buxman is in the house. Karyn is an RN, MSN, and publisher of the Journal of Nursing Jocularity, a humor magazine for RNs. She is also the current president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor conference. If you are allergic to laughter…don’t say we didn’t warn you!Coming up in the next several weeks all new interviews, a new segment by our friend and funny lady Lynn Ruth Miller and of course we continue to thank you our listeners and supporters. Have a very happy holiday season!

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NO DOUBT ABOUT IT…LAUGHTER REALLY IS THE BEST MEDICINE!

May 2nd, 2010 by Pattie Lockard

Nurse Talk traveled to Disneyland for the AATH (Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor) 2010 Conference. The conference tag this year was “Biology of Hope/Healing Power of the Human Spirit”.  Although our stay was cut short due to my creative travel arrangements—it was fabulous to meet such wonderful, smart, funny people who are up to such amazing things. AATH is where the community of professionals who study, (yes it is true!) practice, and promote healthy humor and laughter connect.We were invited by this year’s conference co-chairs Mary Kay Morrison and Chip Lutz, and the President of AATH herself, Karyn Buxman. A big shout out to all of you for putting on “the big show” and inviting us to attend. This was the first conference I have ever been to where I didn’t have to make excuses for our crew’s irreverent and inappropriate behavior—in fact all of this is encouraged! Next year we will be back—only this time I will have a professional travel agent make the arrangements so we can stay for the entire conference.Thanks for the memories and the wonderful connections—and for those of you who have not heard of AATH or the conference—check it out at aath.org or go to our website’s links page at nursetalksite.com.Thanks to all of our new friends for the work you do every day to make the world a better, happier place!Enjoy some pics from the conference…

Theresa, Amy & Denise--Need we say more?!

Theresa, Amy & Denise--Need we say more?!

[caption id="attachment_613" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Mary Kay Morrison, AATH Conference Co-Chair"]Mary Kay Morrison, AATH Conference Co-Chair[/caption]
Laughter is the best medicine

Laughter is the best medicine

[caption id="attachment_611" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Deb Hart, AATH Conference 2010"]Deb Hart, AATH Conference 2010[/caption]
Nurse Talk's Casey Hobbs and Chip Lutz, AATH Conference Co-Chair and President Elect

Nurse Talk's Casey Hobbs and Chip Lutz, AATH Conference Co-Chair and President Elect

[caption id="attachment_609" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="AATH President Karyn Buxman, Marianne Schmitt, Assistant Professor Blessing-Rieman College of Nursing and Student Nurses Group"]AATH President Karyn Buxman, Marianne Schmitt, Assistant Professor Blessing-Rieman College of Nursing and Student Nurses Group[/caption]

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