Enrolling at the same college at the same time seemed like a “neat” idea to Susan, but this savvy mom realized that some boundaries needed to be established and that her daughter was going to need some space of her own. And while Miranda admits that having her mom on campus took some getting used to, she found herself seeking Susan out during meal breaks, and both women found their mother-daughter study session to be very productive. But just as important for Susan, she got to see her daughter blossom in an academic environment.
“She made the dean’s list her first semester and honors every semester since,” this proud mother reports. “She’s looking at dean’s list this semester.”
Miranda is quick to give credit to CSC’s federally-funded TRIO Student Support Services for giving her the tools to thrive as a student. The TRIO program is specifically geared for ‘first generation college students’—i.e. students who come from families where neither parent holds a college degree—who are seeking to enter a 4-year degree program after graduating from CSC. As a CSC and TRIO graduate, Miranda has been accepted at Illinois Southern University, where she will pursue a degree in elementary education. And to hear Miranda tell it, the TRIO program was the key to keeping her on track to ISU.
]]>“I love my job,” Brown said.
School nurse Shirley Rodriguez likes giving shots to kids. Not because of the pain she might inflict, but because she’s learned how to do it WITHOUT hurting them. She’s good at distracting kids and getting them to laugh at the right time.
Rodriguez is the health services coordinator for Yuma School District 1 and the school nurse at Alice Byrne Elementary School.
“I love kids. I love getting them the help they need,” Rodriguez said.
For Steve Champion, a former Army medic, hospice nursing is like being an “ER on the fly.” He enjoys the “ongoing rush” he gets from helping people in crisis. As a registered nurse with Hospice Compassus, he has to use all of the skills he’s worked for years to develop.
“This job requires you to use every skill you have and to give of yourself. That’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing,” Champion said.
Fran Mack, a home health nurse, feels honored at being allowed into patients’ homes, “the most sacred place on Earth for patients, their sanctuary and haven.”
Her role as a nurse practitioner with Caring Touch Home Care allows her to treat patients in their home environment. She feels strongly about empowering patients and their families so they can make informed decisions.
“Nursing is not a profession, it’s a way of life,” Mack said.
The Yuma Sun interviewed nurses in a variety of fields — hospital, home health, hospice and school nursing — in honor of National Nurses Week, which will be celebrated from May 6, also National Nurses Day, through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing.
“Glue” of health care
Brenda Hall, who oversees the 760 nurses at YRMC as vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer, calls nurses the “glue” of the health-care system.
“Nurses are there 24/7. They are your 24-hour caregivers when you’re in the hospital. They’re there to meet your needs and figure out how to take care of you.”
Hall has been a nurse for more than 30 years and has worked in seven states in just about every field, from heart surgery and operating room to delivery.
“I absolutely fell in love with nursing. For me, there’s no better career. I love taking care of patients. It’s almost like magic, seeing someone so sick and being a part of them getting better.”
She believes anyone can be a nurse and it doesn’t take a specific personality. “It’s so broad, there are so many things you can do, I don’t know if personality is important.”
Some nurses don’t have contact with patients, like nurses who work in the insurance business, while others work “up close and personal,” like those in the neonatal intensive care unit.
However, Hall noted, a nurse has to be willing to “focus on something or someone else other than yourself and be able to extend yourself.”
Hospital
Being able to directly care for people is what drew Griselda Brown into nursing six years ago.
“Honestly, the best part are the families and patients. I spend a lot of time with them, and when I can help them understand something, it feels good.”
As a palliative care nurse, her “job is to support and advocate for our patients. Sometimes we get so busy looking at the medical, we forget the emotional and progression of the disease. Families might not understand what’s happening.”
Aside from managing symptoms, Brown helps families understand all of the issues “so they can make decisions for the future.”
The challenge is discussing topics related to end of life. “Some don’t want to talk about it.”
Home health
Fran Mack, who has been a nurse for more than 30 years and a home health nurse since the early 1990s, values the opportunities to teach and educate patients and families.
“The best part of the job are the patients and helping people to make informed decisions.”
If a patient is dealing with a new diagnosis, she teaches the person and family how the disease will affect them not only on a physical level, but every aspect of their life. This means informing them about diet, medication side effects, what happens if they don’t take the medication, etc.
The challenge for her is adapting to whatever environment she’s “thrown into.”
“I have been in homes with chickens in the living room. Sometimes they’re dysfunctional homes. I have to make sure it’s safe. But I have to put aside my own values and standards to take care of a patient.”
She noted that “frontline nursing really needs to be the voice that leads how health care should run.” Because they spend so much time with patients, they understand how health-care policies “trickle down to the single patient.”
]]>Then I was off to work at a job with a steady paycheck and health insurance. This was great and I had accomplished my goal. I also discovered that I loved being a nurse and the bonus was that every day I had an opportunity to make a difference.
My first nursing job was in cardiology and then I moved to home care. After a few years I became a hospice nurse, which was where I needed to be. I loved being a hospice nurse and became passionate about a good end-of-life experience for everyone. I believe in the hospice philosophy of living as well as you can for as long as you can. Isn’t this what everyone wants?
After 10 great years, I left hospice to become the palliative care coordinator at The Regional Cancer Center. I had learned so much during my time as a hospice nurse and hoped that I could use my skills and knowledge to help cancer patients maintain their quality of life while facing a life-threatening disease. While working with cancer patients and caregivers can be challenging and emotionally draining, it can also be rewarding. Cancer is a heartbreaking word and a life changing event for patients, their families and caregivers. Much can be done to address pain and suffering throughout the cancer journey if we take the time to listen.
As a palliative care nurse I provide symptom management and extra support to patients and caregivers. Patients who have their needs met have fewer psychosocial issues, such as depression, stress and worry, and are more likely to complete their cancer treatments. This allows patients with a life-threatening disease to live as well as they can for as long as possible.
]]>For Kim Ridley, a nurse recruiter and emergency room nurse at Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, nursing has undergone a major makeover since she graduated. “When I got out of school 30 years ago, you wore the little caps and support hose. Now we’re in a world of robotic surgery and transplants. Nurses are more specialized. We have burn units and a stem-cell transplant floor.”
The nurses are among more than 3 million across the country being honored during National Nurses Day today and during National Nurses Week, which ends on the birthday of Florence Nightingale on May 12.
The one thing that hasn’t changed since Nightingale established the first professional nursing school in 1860 is a perennial shortage of nurses.
With the growing baby boomer population, employment of nurses was projected to grow 26 percent between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a faster rate of growth than what’s expected for most other occupations.
At the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, interim College of Nursing Dean Susan Jacob said the school is having to turn away growing numbers of applicants because of a lack of resources and faculty. “We had a lull in student applicants about eight years ago. Then people tried to get people interested in nursing. Then the schools couldn’t accommodate that many people.”
Compounding the problem, salaries for nurses rose faster than salaries for nursing faculty, says Jacob. That meant some faculty left to return to the practice of nursing. The recession then added to the problem. Older nurses who had reduced hours or left the profession returned to the workforce or increased their hours just as people looking for stable jobs were applying to nursing schools.
The result, says Jacob, is a highly competitive environment. “Schools will tell you they are admitting people with GPAs of 3.8.”
At Southwest Tennessee Community College, nursing department head Mary Vines said the department has outgrown its space and will be moving into a new building next year along with natural science and biotechnology divisions.
]]>What’s different?
Don’t bother to put your GPA on your resume. I know you are proud of it, but it doesn’t belong on your resume.
Your clinical rotations are your most relevant work experience and thus your biggest selling point. Devote the bulk of your resume space to outlining your different rotations and what you accomplished. But take care not to take up space with the mundane. Instead, you should highlight skills you mastered and that are more than your basic entry level competency. This is where those clinical logs you all complain about having to keep come in handy!
Sum up the ages, genders and cultural backgrounds you saw during your rotations. Identify specific illnesses or diseases you became proficient in treating and the procedures you mastered. Use numbers to quantify your student encounters whenever possible.
You need to have at least one faculty reference. Employers get suspicious when a new graduate does not have at least one faculty from their program on their reference list.
Previous work experience should only be listed if it is medically related. Employers don’t care about your previous career in construction or the fact that you cashiered at the local department store.
]]>For 12 of past 13 years, nurses have topped the Gallup Poll of the most trustworthy professionals. Patients and their families know why.
While doctors diagnose illnesses and prescribe medication, surgery or other treatment, it’s often nurses who explain medical procedures, help manage symptoms, respond to emergencies, listen to family concerns, allay patient fears, soothe worries and find ways to make difficult situations bearable.
A nurse’s mission is not only to save lives, but to promote and preserve quality of life.
“The basis of great nursing is caring, but it’s bigger than that,” said Deborah Almauhy, chief nursing officer at Rockdale Medical Center in Conyers. “It’s a commitment to a lifestyle, not just a 12-hour job at a hospital.
“I’m a nurse at every family picnic, neighborhood gathering and kids’ ballgame. I’m a nurse when friends are sick and [when] parents get older and turn to you for help. Nursing is a part of my protoplasm.”
While caring is an integral component of nursing, today’s focus on evidence-based practice, ongoing research and continuous technological advances make a passionate commitment to learning just as essential, Almauhy said.
Almauhy’s career plans were set when she was in preschool, as a poster in her office confirms. It shows the face of a young girl with the words, “When I grow up I’m gonna be a nurse.”
For more than 20 years, Almauhy has worked in urban emergency, trauma and burn centers, as well as serving as a nurse in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
“I can’t even begin to put into words how much I have loved being a nurse,” Almauhy said. “It has been an indescribable career.”
Elaina S. Hall, director, Grady Burn Center, Grady Health System
“Every great nurse I know has the following characteristics: caring nature, detail-oriented, emotionally stable, great judgment, physical endurance and extraordinary communication skills.
“In today’s health care environment, nurses must be ready to complete a comprehensive physical and mental assessment of a patient. He or she must have a comprehensive knowledge of infection control, body mechanics, genitourinary issues and an endless list of quantitative and qualitative measures of a patient’s well-being.
“She must do all this and, of course, smile and help achieve organizational patient-satisfaction metrics. A great nurse can do all these things and still love her job!”
Carol Danielson, senior vice president and chief nurse executive, Gwinnett Health System
“What makes a great nurse? Two words come to mind: competent and compassionate. A competent nurse is a skilled and knowledgeable expert for the patient [and] who is trusted to always do the right thing. A compassionate nurse is sympathetic to another’s misfortune.
“A great nurse empathizes with the patient and family and is able to consistently convey a complete understanding and knowledge of what they are experiencing, along with a strong conviction of wanting to help. These qualities combined result in the ultimate bond between patient and nurse — one of trust, understanding and advocacy.”
Susan Grant, chief nurse executive, Emory Healthcare
“I spent a summer in college working as a nursing assistant and discovered that I loved connecting and being present with my geriatric patients. I thought, ‘This is me, this is who I am.’
“I felt compassion for them and that they needed an advocate. I think it’s critical for a nurse to really know herself. Nursing requires a lot of self-awareness. It’s not a job; it’s about who you are and how you relate to other people.
“A great nurse is someone who is a good partner. She partners with her patients and families, not with the goal of making them dependent, but of fostering empowerment. Her role isn’t to do things to them or for them, but to strengthen them through the healing process.
“It takes skill, a sharp intellect, self-knowledgeempathy and compassion to be a great nurse.
“I have the privilege of leading other nurses. People think of a chief nurse executive as a big job, but the big job is taking care of patients at the bedside. Seeing what our nurses do inspires me every day.”
Victoria Alberti, manager, Kaiser Permanente of Georgia Breast Center
“Great nurses are born, not made. They have an innate gift of unconditional compassion and a relentless determination to alleviate suffering.
“Providing strength in a patient’s time of weakness and going beyond the call of duty to bring a smile to his face — that is the role of a great nurse.
“But more importantly, great nurses are medical advocates for their patients.”
Sheyla Desir, nurse manager, acute care services, Atlanta VA Medical Center
“The technology has changed and our patients have more complex illnesses, but the one thing that hasn’t changed since Florence Nightingale started the profession is caring. A great nurse sees the patient, not the tubes. She sees someone who could be her mother, her father or her child, and she cares for them as if it were so.
“I’ve been fortunate to have some great nurses teach me, nurture me and take me under their wings to guide me into the profession. I’ve learned that a great nurse takes care of her patients, her fellow nurses and her whole organization.”
Susan Sweat Gunby, professor, Mercer University’s Georgia Baptist College of Nursing
“Great nurses, regardless of whether they work in clinical practice, education, administration, research or other areas, all possess three qualities or essences. These are:
“1. Passion: Their passion for excellence in all they do can be seen and felt by others.
“2. Pride: They take immense pride in being a nurse and in honoring the heritage and legacy of a caring profession.
“3. Presence: Great nurses communicate with — and from — a profound depth and quality of presence. They are committed to ‘being with’ and ‘being there’ with patients and clients.”
]]>Ideally, within a short time of leaving the classroom, they’ll be working the kind of job that justifies the costs of their tuition and the long hours they’ve put into their school work.
A less inviting prospect is being unemployed or stuck in what Generation X author Douglas Coupland called a “McJob.”
“Ultimately, I’d just like to have a job that I actually like,"says Alyssa Max, a 22-year-old psychology student with the University of Ottawa, who’s completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology. “I know a lot people end up in jobs that they’re not really huge fans of or that don’t really motivate them or that they don’t love.”
Max is hoping to land a job related to her major before returning to school for a master’s degree in a year or two. She says she doesn’t have any solid leads yet.
“I’m hoping to find something at least related to psychology, possibly in the non-profit sector, that will at least allow me to gain some more experience and work with people. But honestly, I’m pretty much open to anything.”
The job market isn’t exactly thriving for young people right now. The unemployment rate for people ages 15 to 24 was at 13.9 per cent in March, almost twice the rate of 7.2 per cent for the general population.
Avery Shenfeld, chief economist with CIBC World Markets, says that despite overall growth in Canada’s job market since the recession ended in 2009, the benefits have not been equally shared by younger members of the labour force.
Still, he adds: “Certainly, relative to those who graduated in 2009, things are not nearly as hopeless.”
Data from Statistics Canada show almost 15 million people ages 25 and older were employed as of March this year, which is about 700,000 more than exactly three years earlier. For for those between 15 and 24, employment numbers were actually down by 60,000 to 2.45 million.
Asked why young people have not shared in the jobs recovery of recent years, Shenfeld says succinctly: “People without much experience tend to be at the back of the line in terms of getting a job.”
Nonetheless, Shenfeld says the picture looks brighter in the months ahead for new grads than it did three years ago. He says with much of the unemployment having been cleared up among older workers, some employers may now be forced to turn to younger applicants when filling positions.
Lara Dodo, Toronto-based regional vice-president with staffing firm Robert Half International, agrees the job market for new grads has improved from recent years but remains quite competitive.
“New grads can expect that employers are looking for someone with a proven track record who can contribute immediately,” she says. “We do understand that there’s a Catch-22 for new graduates; you need experience to get experience.”
Dodo said students should try to attain experience while in school through things such as internships, volunteering and/or summer work.
Some of the in-demand skills for jobs right now include accounting, finance, payroll administration and information-technology specialties, such as network engineering and web development, Dodo says.
Shenfeld says where young people look for work might be even more important than the type of job they seek in terms of increasing the odds of attaining employment.
“One piece of advice, which is a historic one, is, ‘Go west, young man, or woman,’ “ he says, “because that’s where unemployment rates are a lot lower. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, there are a lot of help-wanted signs.”
March data showed an unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent in Alberta and 4.8 per cent in Saskatchewan. That compared to seven per cent in B.C., 7.4 per cent in Ontario and 7.9 per cent in Quebec.
However, picking up one’s life and moving isn’t something that works for everyone, as is the case for graduating psychology student Max.
“I have a partner here [in Ottawa] and I have family here, so for me that’s not really an option,” she says, adding that moving expenses and the choice of schools out West for future study are also impediments to relocating.
]]>Marrying technology with medicine may be part of the solution to better health care and lead to more business opportunities, but there have been challenges. Concerns about privacy, how doctors get paid and whether traditional geriatric facilities — such as nursing homes — will go away as more people choose to remain in their homes, are among them.
“In the private industry, there’s a whole group of people looking at how to solve this problem,” Ralph de la Vega, chief executive officer of Atlanta-based AT&T Mobility, said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Obviously, we’re not alone in this, but we think the technology we have will allow people to be able to do that.”
Analysts say what’s known as the home health care industry — adding technology, telecommunications, smartphone applications and other equipment to make it easier for seniors to stay in their homes — could swell to between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion because of the number of involved partners: wireless companies, technology developers, hospitals, doctors, insurers and home builders. The growth will come at the right time. Nearly 75 percent of AARP’s surveyed members say they’d prefer to stay in their current home as long as possible, and much of the baby boomer generation is more comfortable with using technology and mobile devices compared with their parents.
They also have the most equity in their homes, have more long-term savings and are willing to spend money on gadgets.
“It’s helping the wireless industry transform itself. It can become more competitive and better for the customers. That’s a big job,” said telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan.
The business opportunities have led AT&T Mobility to develop what’s becoming a separate division called Digital Life Services that will be run out of Atlanta. The organization will be housed under the AT&T Mobility’s whiz-bang “Emerging Devices” division, which started three years ago.
For its part, Verizon Wireless has formed its own team of account managers, executives and others to focus solely on the health care industry.
“The biggest piece is that Verizon wants to play in this space,” said Rachael Nagrowski, Verizon Wireless’ associate director of strategic sales. “We no longer want to be seen as a cellphone provider.”
AT&T Mobility talked up its new suite of home monitoring services including cameras, lighting, thermostats and motion detectors, part of its Digital Life efforts, at an international mobile technology conference in Barcelona in February. The business model is for overseas only; the company has not made any announcements in the United States. Here, the company broke into the digital health care industry by selling pill bottle tops called GlowCaps, which flash and send out ringtones to remind people to take their medicine. Every time the cap is opened, the person’s doctor or family member gets notified electronically.
“AT&T’s concern in this space is really around the fact that when you look at the stats — 10,000 people a day retiring — you look at the current infrastructure in the U.S. for people that are aging, there is no way with the baby boomers and how fast they are retiring. We don’t have the infrastructure to keep up,” said Glenn Lurie, head of AT&T Mobility’s emerging devices unit. “We need to understand that people are living longer, and we need to do a better job of asking those people what they want.”
It’s rare that the phone companies will develop these mobile health care technology devices themselves. Rather, they will partner with a company that’s developed new technology for the health care industry. That device typically contains the same type of software and network elements that are in a smartphone, so it can communicate with a caregiver, doctor or nurse using the mobile phone provider’s wireless network.
The development of these devices now helps people take their blood pressure, heart rate and weight at home, for example, and upload the information to a database for a doctor to read it. Any changes in vital signs or warnings of trouble can be spotted early, and the doctor can call to change medication, ask the person to come in for an appointment or send an ambulance for emergency care.
“The focus of all of health care now is really to reduce in-patient hospital care, nursing home care, facility kind of care,” said Mark Oshnock, chief executive officer of Atlanta-based Visiting Nurse Health System.
As much as $25 billion a year is spent on hospital readmissions. Medicare estimates that 75 percent of those readmissions could be prevented with better outpatient care, Oshnock said.
Oshnock said there was initial resistance from the visiting nurses when they first started using remote monitoring equipment five years ago.
“There were a lot of implementation issues, one of which was, ‘How can I be replaced by this little piece of equipment?’”
Not long after, Oshnock said the nurses said it was worth taking an extra 10 to 15 minutes to show someone who had just been discharged from the hospital how to use the remote monitoring equipment to check vital signs. It’s prevented people from returning to the hospital, allows nurses to check more patients and saves everyone money.
“It’s been a working solution for us,” Oshnock said.
In many cases, it’s eased the mental, emotional and often physical stress families or a spouse experience when caring for an ailing family member.
Suffering from dementia and emphysema, Jim Connelly wasn’t getting out of bed or interacting with his wife, Cackie. That all changed when his daughter, Mary McKenzie of Sandy Springs, bought a multimedia device called SimpleC. Similar to a small TV screen, the device uses photos, music and voice recordings to tap into a person’s long-term memory, helping to motivate someone who is suffering from memory loss.
McKenzie installed old family photos, 1950s music and voice recordings of herself reading prayers and psalms to help trigger memories of the family growing up.
“Dad would perk up,” when he would hear the music and see the photos, McKenzie said. Hearing the psalms would calm him at night, she said. What’s more, McKenzie said her mother felt less overwhelmed.
“This gave her a little bit of confidence, and afterward she started taking steps to get Dad more help,” McKenzie said. “I felt like it was a catalyst to get her going.”
The makers of SimpleC, which contracts with Verizon Wireless to run on its 4G LTE network, started testing it in homes last summer after installing it in 29 assisted-living centers. SimpleC directly markets SimpleC to assisted-living centers and is working with Verizon to market it to families and seniors who are remaining in their own homes.
]]>There are different reasons for needing or wanting to work part-time. Maybe you’re interested in working as a contractor to ramp up a new freelance business. Or maybe you want to spend more time with your kids. Maybe you feel like you’ve exhausted all the full-time opportunities in this market, or perhaps you just want some extra cash. (According to SnagaJob.com, 8.3 million Americans take part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time roles.)
Whatever the reason, a part-time role (temporary or otherwise) will do the trick. Take these 5 steps to land part-time work:
1. Figure out your schedule. Because part-time roles vary in the number of hours worked, you’ll need to begin by determining how many hours you can work a week, and what hours you are available. Part of determining your availability is looking at the amount of money you want to bring in. Do a rough estimate of what you think you could make hourly, and decide how many hours you would have to work to bring that amount home. Take your availability schedule with you when starting the job search.
2. Start with the job boards. You might be surprised to find a variety of part-time opportunities on job boards, especially in nursing and sales. Not all companies list part-time jobs on these boards, but they are the places to start. Sometimes a company may list a full-time role that could be a part-time position for the right person, so don’t disregard full-time positions that look good.
3. Do a little handshaking. Because so many companies don’t publicly announce part-time positions, it’s important to network with people who work at different companies. Sometimes positions are created based on a company’s needs and an individual’s skill set, so you might find yourself in a unique position to pitch a company on a part-time role if you network with the right people (Think: part-time social media manager). Spend some time on LinkedIn to reconnect with your contacts. Put your feelers out for any opportunities that may fit.
4. Look in the right places. Part-time jobs aren’t just found in retail and restaurants. Customer service roles, for example, may be offered as telecommute positions that allow you to customize your schedule.
Government agencies and schools are another good place to look for part-time jobs. Unfortunately, many federally funded entities have had their budgets cut and are looking for ways to reduce expenses. While they still need staff, these entities work to reduce their full-time positions so they don’t have to pay benefits, which means there may be part-time opportunities. Since not everyone can afford to take a part-time job, you may have a little less competition than you would with a full-time role.
]]>While such people may be generally healthier, scientists think a sense of well-being may lower risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Stress and depression have already been linked to heart disease.
The researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health trawled medical trial databases to find studies that had recorded psychological well-being and cardiovascular health.
This revealed that factors such as optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness appeared to be associated with a reduced risk of heart and circulatory diseases, regardless of a person’s age, socio-economic status, smoking status or body weight.
Disease risk was 50% lower among the most optimistic individuals.
‘Not proof’
Dr Julia Boehm and colleagues stress that their work only suggests a link and is not proof that well-being buffers against heart disease.
]]>But Mari, 47, is happy. And she doesn’t exude a Pollyanna-ish kind of optimism. It’s real; a dig-deep, stay-in-the-game-of-life kind of joy.
A motivational speaker, an executive coach for schools and nonprofits and the founder of Team WILD (We Inspire Life with Diabetes), Mari believes answers start with the individual.
“In life, you get what you get,” she says. “The only thing you can control is your attitude. All right, this is happening to me — what am I going do about it?”
Mari, who lives in Denver, walks the talk; or rather runs, cycles and swims it. She started exercising at age 31, at the urging of a doctor who told her she would die otherwise. She had been terrified of low blood sugars and how her body might react to exercise.
When she had radiation treatment for her first cancer, she began training for a triathlon.
“I rode my bike to chemo almost every day, and in the wintertime, I rode my training bike inside, looking at a picture of Lance Armstrong,” says Mari.
In 2006, she joined a Tour de Cure bicycle ride sponsored by the American Diabetes Association. In that event, she noticed there was no way to tell which participants had diabetes, so she proposed the Red Rider recognition program. Now cyclists with diabetes wear red “I Ride With Diabetes!” jerseys in the more than 80 annual Tour de Cure rides across the country.
“Recognition is important,” Mari says. “If you’re taking charge of your health, you deserve to be celebrated.”
Ever the observer, Mari also noticed that most of the Red Riders were men. So in 2008, Mari founded Team WILD (Teamwild.org), an organization that supports and empowers female endurance athletes with diabetes. This year, Team WILD has four teams, including a group of 10 who participated in an Ironman triathlon in September, an event comprised of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. Team members across the country have a monthly conference call with a coach and then meet for races.
Kerry Snider, 50, who was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in February 2010, says Mari inspired her to make exercising a habit. The self-described former couch potato has lost 60 pounds and is a member of Team WILD 101, an exercise and diabetes support group.
]]>Health is the second largest industry by employment in Butler County, with some hospitals among the largest employers in their communities.
Despite a slowly improving economy, vacancy rates or open jobs increased at the end of 2011 from the year before to 6.1 percent, or approximately 3,500 full- and part-time openings. That’s compared to about 50,200 hospital jobs and about 2,800 full- and part-time job openings, a vacancy rate of 5.1 percent, at the end of 2010, according to the health council.
Registered nurses remain the hospital job with the highest total of all openings at Butler County and other area hospitals.
At the end of 2011, there were 672 full-time openings for registered nurses, a vacancy rate of 6.6 percent of the work force of 9,530 registered nurses at the hospitals, according to the health council.
Over the last five years, the health council said the total number of hospital jobs in the area has grown every year from 47,172 at the end of 2007 to 52,099 most recently.
“Health care is a great profession to not only be in but to think about joining. There’s so many opportunities now,” said Mary Duffey, executive director of the Cincinnati health council’s Health Care Workforce Center. “You don’t have to be good just in biology. There’s a place in health care for everyone.”
The job openings are being driven by physical growth of the hospitals to increase access to care and increasing health needs of an aging population, Duffey said.
Vacancy rates reached a peak in 2003 of 20.1 percent for registered nurses. Then it dipped in 2009 to a low rate of job openings for registered nurses of 3 percent before increasing last year to 6.6 percent.
The jobs with double-digit vacancy rates in 2012 are: nurse practitioners, an advanced degree nurse with 27.7 percent vacancy of a total 87 full-time employees; physical therapy assistants with 15.6 percent vacancy of a total 61 full-time employees; and patient care technicians/assistants, an entry-level nursing aid position with 11.6 percent vacancy of a total 1,434 full-time employees, according to the health council.
“We’ve have steady growth through hard economic times and we expect that to continue,” Duffey said.
]]>The Samper plaintiff, a neonatal nurse in the defendant-hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), suffered from fibromyalgia which, she claimed, limited her sleep and caused her chronic pain. The nurse asked the hospital to accommodate this disability by allowing her to miss work whenever she was having a “bad day.” After years of unacceptable absenteeism what the Court described as the hospital’s “Herculean efforts” to accommodate the plaintiff, she was terminated. She sued the hospital, claiming that it failed to provide her with a reasonable accommodation for her disability.
The hospital did not dispute that the plaintiff was disabled, that she had the requisite technical skills for the job, or that she suffered an adverse employment action. The hospital argued, however, that although the plaintiff possessed the technical qualifications of the job, she was unable to perform the essential function of showing up for work.
The burden was on the hospital to establish which functions were “essential” to the job. Arguing that the hospital did not meet its burden to show that attendance was an essential function of the job, the plaintiff cited numerous cases for the proposition that regular attendance was not required. For example, she cited to cases where “workers were basically fungible with one another, so that it did not matter who was doing the job on any particular day,” (dockworkers) as well as cases where the work could be performed remotely (medical transcriptionists).
The Court easily distinguished those cases, however, from cases like this one, where irregular attendance compromises essential functions. Indeed, the Court stated:
To imagine a NICU facility, responsible for the emergency care of infants, operating effectively in such a manner, stretches the notion of accommodation beyond any reasonable limit. An accommodation that would allow [the plaintiff] to “simply . . . miss work whenever she felt she needed to and apparently for so long as she felt she needed to [a]s a matter of law . . . [is] not reasonable” on its face. Internal citations omitted.
]]>For her work both inside and outside the hospital walls, Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital recently named Gomez its 2011 Employee of the Year.
“Mary Ann’s service to her patients and co-workers has far exceeded the requirements of her job,” said Rick Mace, chief executive officer of Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital. “The level of compassion she has for her patients has been recognized over and over by the numerous letters and cards I receive from family members. She is simply a positive, uplifting person to work with.”
Gomez came to Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital in 2009, one of 12 accepted nurses out of 200 applicants for its new nurse graduate program. Before nursing, Gomez worked a variety of jobs including waitressing and customer service.
“Nursing is very rewarding,” Gomez said. “When I drive home at night, I try to think of the people I made smile that day, patients as well as families who were put at ease, because I tried my best to explain and empathize with them.”
Community service is also important to Gomez. Some of her activities have included organizing a toiletries drive at Jackson Middle School in Villa Park. The drive netted more than 1,000 items for Adventist Midwest Health mission trip to Costa Rica in January. Gomez also helped with the hospital’s cancer awareness committee.
]]>It’s not entry-level positions where there are gaps, it’s the specialized areas like the operating room.
There are plenty of qualified Alaskans ready to take entry-level positions in nursing.
“The estimated need for nurses in the state is 130 nurses per year, and we are putting out about 200 graduates a year,” said Barbara Berner, director of UAA’s School of Nursing.
For students finishing their undergraduate degree the job market is tight.
“We are also hearing from the institutions that they are no longer requiring as many traveling nurses from out of state to do basic nursing care,” Berner said.
But this does not apply to specialty nurses – especially those working in areas like the operating theater and intensive care unit.
“They take at least two years of previous experience, and we prefer acute care,” said Tammy Kaminski, of Alaska Regional Hospital’s human resources department.
Across the state, including at Alaska Regional Hospital, experienced specialty nurses are in short supply, and it’s necessary to draw people up from the Lower 48, which doesn’t always work out.
“I would say for every 10 nurses we recruit from out of state we are able to keep one,” Kaminski said.
Students who are finishing specialized graduate programs are getting picked up much more quickly.
“People with particular specialties often have jobs before they even leave the graduate program because there is such a need in the state,” said Berner.
]]>