'Nursing Moments' #1 The Carnival of Nursing Blogs

This is it! The very first carnival dedicated to the ways of thinking, feeling and acting we call 'nursing', an activity of 'Head and Heart and Hand', the place where science and art meet, clash and fuse in the strange and wonderful synthesis of daily life.

Managers of health services say that they see nurses as 'valuable human resources'. These pieces of writing demonstrate that we are more than human resources, we are 'human beings', engaging on a daily basis with other human beings in a way that no other health profession can - people see nurses for the most crucial and intimate of reasons, at all stages of the lifespan, at all times of day and night. Nursing is about life and quality of life, about health and human potential, about the mutual support and solidarity of the human species.

The first contribution, is from EmJC of The Unlikely RN She goes straight to the heart of the issues that affect every nurse:- human bodily fluids in Master of the Urethra "It's funny, people used to (and still do) make fun of my nursing school decision and joke about the poop and pee and puke I'd have to deal with. I would haughtily tell them "Oh ho. The days of bedpans and nurses in caps lifting patients and cleaning up vomit are long
gone - the modern nurse isn't responsible for such things..."
Personally I would rather wade knee deep in the human effluvia that EmJC deals with, than watch another Party Election Broadcast!

Jordan Barab gives us British nurses a warning of the kind of innovation our Health Service DOESN'T need in his account of how a 30 Minute Promise policy brought in by the hospital managers led to him being badly injured at work. As our health service faces creeping privatisation, how long will it be before this kind of scheme crosses over the Atlantic?

Geena gives us a picture of a typical day in her life in Tales from the CCU, while Jodie S. looks at life with people who face death Tumour Board

Krybabynurse is a brand new nursing blog - here is an extract from one of her recent posts: "I 've been in situations where I've thought something was funny, only to be looked at strangely, because apparently what I'm talking about is a serious issue. I know somethings in healthcare are really serious, but there are some things you just can't change (for example, bring somebody's legs back), so why not just have a laugh about it and move on??" Do you agree? You will have to visit her blog, read her full post, and make your own mind up…

EmJC has a second bite at the cherry with this article: Oh Sh*t! dealing with her feelings of mortification at uttering these scatological expletives in the presence of her patient:
"A cardinal rule of the health professions involves never ever using the word "Ooops" or saying "Oh Shit". So I decided to break it on Friday. I was helping a patient perform some perineal-area cleansing which involved fussing with her hospital-issue panties. I was being very gentle and careful and totally forgot the woman had an indwelling catheter and came close to pulling the damned thing out. I went with "Oh Shit" instead of "Ooops""

Finally I offer you a couple of posts from my own blog A Charter for Human Caring In Nursing and my tirade against the Harvard Referencing System the most miserable instrument of mental torture ever inflicted on British Student Nurses.

If you have enjoyed 'Nursing Moments', then you might consider one of the following actions:
1. Submit an article to a future edition
2. Host a future edition.
3. Post a link to this carnival.

Cheers, and Happy Nursing!