Nursing Blog Roundup

I have previously posted on the need for more nursing blogs, and I hope to use this blog to encourage the development of a community of nurse bloggers.
To this end, this roundup will look at highlights of some of the best, and newest of the nursing blogs I have found so far.
This is by no means an exhaustive list - there are millions of bloggers out there, and a fair number of them must be nurses - the more we post, search, and link with each other, the more we can draw together - so if you are a nurse who likes to blog, please post below.

One nursing blog that has made a big impression on me is 'Baskets of Blessings', by 'Barbara' particularly her post 'True Story': True Story where her living experience burns through the screen: "The abuse began again. My husband had drank when we first got married and for awhile after. He was a bit rough with Matt. He would spank him and leave whelps. He would spank him for such stupid things...like reaching for things in the store. What child less than two years of age doesn't?? Then it got better for awhile. He quit drinking and we were much better off for a year or two. I hadn't been beaten in awhile...or abused much. He would punch me in the head with his fist so that no one could see that he hit me. Sometimes he'd keep me up all night for several nights denying me sleep until I was delirious. He smashed things against the walls....threw phones through windows...broke things that meant a lot to me...force me to have sex against my will....etc. Then he had started this back. This time though, he was chasing Matthew through the house like a madman, spanking him and telling him that he'd get it worse if he told me when I got home from work (I didn't find out for awhile), throw things at us, smash things on the wall over his head for the scare affect, throw him across the room onto the couch or a bed, ask him to answer questions that he couldn't possibly answer and make his punishment worse when he didn't...and on and on."

We like to think of nurses as cool professionals, but we are also human beings, with real experiences who need to name our worlds and share them, there are many people, including many nurses who will have shared similar experiences to Barbara, she has done them all a service by daring to write about them so honestly.

This post from 'Third Degree Nurse' describes some of the real fear felt by Nursing Students, even mature experienced adults with existing academic qualifications ; What Is This Fear?

"I keep thinking if I could name this fear it will dissipate. It is not real and I won't let it consume me.

However, I do recognize that my stomach has been upside down and, quite unlike me, I have not been able to sleep.

It's been this way since I got accepted into the nursing program.

Maybe I read too many nursing blogs. There are a lot of horror stories out there, people. Some are as bad as some of the things I remember from the state school (although that was often more comic than tragic) or corrections.

And now my math phobia has resurfaced."

I have been in a class of nursing students attempting to work out dosages, and it is a real eye-opener!

In this post 'Head Nurse' describes the single downside of nursing: Downside of Nursing "There is, near as I can tell, only one real downside to nursing as a profession.

I'm not joking, people. The hours are long and the pay can be miserable, but there's always another (possibly better) job out there. Physically, it's hard work--but there's always another (possibly better) job out there. Patients and coworkers do share bugs with you now and again, but you get better. Mostly. Even the caffeine addiction can be broken, with time and careful medical management.

No, friends, the downside of which I speak is Not Being Able To Dress Oneself Any Longer."

Tomv32 in his brand new blog, posts on his experience of the problems experienced by relatives with strong religious beliefs: Prayer
"The problem is not the people feel better if they pray. The problem is that people count on God to do some thing that is just not going to happen. The more religiously conservative a person is the more likely they are to believe that God will actually help them. I an a nurse and have seen several people die. The more religious a person is the harder the death of the loved one is because they have asked God to heal their family member."

Nurses can write poetry too - as Heidi proves in 'Tales of an Aspiring Nightingale" Tales of Aspiring Nightingale here is an extract from her most recent:
"oh
How I nearly plunged into ecstasy
when I pulled you over
my hips
and fastened you
just below my waist
your softness caressing every inch
of my legs
The image of you and me
as one
showed me
how you fit me like a glove
how you held my thighs perfectly
how you molded my backside
into two perfect orbs"

(It is an ode to a pair of jeans!)

Finally, this post from the excellent 'Seyms Nurse in Training Blog' Seyms argues convincingly for more nurse involvement in the drafting of National Institute of Clinical Excellence Guidelines (very relevant as NICE issued new guidance on managing violence in Mental Health care environments yesterday), and for nurses to advocate more clearly for their profession:

"I am suddenly more aware of the need rather desperately for nurses to advocate more vocally for their role and perspective which, after all, is forged uniquely in 24hr hands-on-care of clients. In order to do this it may even be needful for some to get over the "identity crisis" I sense in Psychiatric Nursing. "What should we be doing and how should we be doing it?" is highlighted, too in the article by Phil and Poppy. I have seen mental health nurses in the community fight tooth and nail to distinguish themselves from social workers and other MDT members but we need something a great deal more positive than "we have a different training" and something a bit deeper than "they do sections and we do depots.""

I think these few extracts demonstrate the vast creative and thinking energy that exists out there among the nurse bloggers - so lets nurture this!

If you know of a good nursing blog, why not leave a link to their best post below!