Health & Medical Newswire

Posts Tagged ‘Nursing Jobs’

There has never been a better time in the history of man to get a nursing degree. Not only are there many career options for the nursing students of today but there are plenty of excellent career opportunities as well.

Students sitting on the fence and struggling to decide whether an investment in a nursing career is one that will pay off should consider these 10 wonderful reasons that nursing is a good bet in education today and tomorrow.

1) Job Security

Right now there is a global nursing shortage. With population booms around the world and baby boomers aging rapidly those shortages look to become more profound in the next five to ten years. Early predications are that the shortage will nearly double in the next five years and more than triple in the next ten. Read Full Story

NY mandates H1N1 flu shots for nurses and health care workers

Nurses and health care workers in New York are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs and they are revolting.

New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. They are being told that if they don’t get the H1N1  flu shots, they will lose their jobs

Is New York turning into a police state? Protesters are holding  signs reading: “The State Doesn’t Own My Body’”

A protest took place throughout the state including Albany, where hundreds of demonstrators demanded freedom of choice.

Health care workers in Hauppauge also rallied Tuesday against the state mandate screaming “No forced shots!”

Paula Small, a Women, Infants and Children health care worker said “I don’t even tend to the sick. I am in the nutrition field. They are telling me I must get the shot because I work in a health clinic setting.

Small’s concern. like many, is that the vaccine is untested and unproven, recalling the 1976 flu shots that caused many deaths from the flu vaccination itself.

Frank Mannino, a 50 year old registered nurse, said the state regulation violates his personal freedom and civil rights.

“And now I will lose my job if I don’t take the regular flu shot or the swine flu shot.”

Around 500,000 health care workers are slated to receive the vaccine.

With already a nursing jobs shortage and lack of adequate heath care staff, can New York afford to carry out its threat of firing its health care employees?

Stay tuned for more on this story.

Betty Lichtenstein Impersonates A Nurse

Norwalk, CT – Betty Lichtenstein, a 56 year old woman, has been charged for illegal use of the title Registered Nurse, reckless endangerment and criminal impersonation.

The story is being compared to the 2000 comedy “Nurse Betty”, where Renee Zellweger pretended to be a nurse, however residents say this is no laughing matter.

Prosecutors said that Lichtenstein paid $2000 of her own money for a staged celebration dinner honoring herself at The Connecticut Nursing Association. The problem is there is no such legal organization known as The Connecticut Nursing Association. Lichtenstein made it all up.

In fact Lichtenstein never had a license to practice nursing, but yet she gave intramuscular injections, medical care and advise to patients. Inspectors from the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit began investigating only after a  complaint that Lichtenstein injected a patient too quickly causing them pain.  A warrant for her arrest was issued.

Watch video.

In an interview with Dr Gerald Weiss, where Lichenstein worked, he said it took him all by suprise. He believed she was a licensed RN but could not find a copy of her nursing license. Under advise from his attorney he has no other comment.

Dr Weiss and his staff became further convinced something was wrong after Lichtenstein won The Connecticut Nursing Association “2008 Nurse of the Year Award”, a complete fabrication.

If she is convicted of all charges, she faces up to five years in prison.

Find nursing jobs and nursing information about travel nursing at Nurses Forum.

Unborn Baby 22 Weeks

Should nurses be forced to perform abortions  as part of their job if it is against their moral code?  Is the following story about nurses having to perform abortions as part of their job an isolated case? Does anyone have other stories about this subject? In my opinion no one should be forced to take the life of a viable baby.

The picture you see on the left is a 22 week old unborn baby.

abs-cbnNEWS.com reports | 07/28/2009 3:43 PM

Brooklyn, New York – A Filipina nurse has filed charges against Mount Sinai Hospital for allegedly forcing her to assist in a late-term abortion procedure.

The New York Post reported that the May 24 incident was traumatic for Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, 35.

“It felt like a horror film unfolding,” said Cenzon-DeCarlo in a report by the New York Post.

Cenzon-DeCarlo was reportedly threatened by Mount Sinai Hospital with insubordination and patient-abandonment if she refuses to assist in the abortion procedure. She also claimed that the hospital has cut her overtime shifts.

A devout catholic, Cenzon-DeCarlo is a married mother of a year-old baby and niece of a Filipino bishop.

She said her bosses at the hospital reportedly exaggerated about the condition of the patient who was 22 weeks into her pregnancy.

In her lawsuit, Cenzon-DeCarlo claimed that the hospital told her the patient had preeclampsia, a condition that could lead to seizures or death if left untreated.

However, she refuted this and said the patient was not even given magnesium therapy which was a common treatment for preeclampsia.

She found out later that the hospital’s own records described the procedure “Category II,” which is not considered immediately life threatening.

The incident prompted Cenzon-DeCarlo to file a grievance with her union, the report said.

“I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred. Doctors and nurses shouldn’t be forced to abandon their beliefs and participate in abortion in order to keep their jobs,” she said in the report.

Cenzon-DeCarlo is a native of the Philippines and moved to New York in 2001. She started working at Mount Sinai Hospital as an operating nurse in 2004.

Find nursing jobs at Nurses Forum

Nursing Jobs Shortage News -  Today Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed legislation to create incentives for healthcare workers to become nurses and for current nurses to become nurse faculty.

The nursing shortage in Illinois could top 21,000, Durbin said. According to information from the senator, 2,523 qualified nursing students were turned away due to lack of faculty and resources.

“Everyone depends on nurses for quality patient care, yet the healthcare system in America lacks an adequate supply of nurses and the problem is getting worse,” Durbin said. “Today’s legislation proposes a new, innovative program that builds on our existing healthcare workforce — an important, but currently untapped resource.”

Durbin’s legislation proposes a new grant through the Department of Labor to train healthcare workers to earn a nursing certificate or degree and assist current nurses in obtaining specialty training or advanced degrees to serve as educators.

This information was obtained from Marion Daily Republican

Looks like the terminator means business. According to the LA Times Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger replaced most members of the state Board of Registered Nursing on Monday, citing the unacceptable time it takes to discipline nurses accused of egregious misconduct.

He fired three of six sitting board members — including President Susanne Phillips — in two-paragraph letters curtly thanking them for their service. Another member resigned Sunday. Late Monday, the governor’s administration released a list of replacements.

The shake-up came a day after The Times and the nonprofit news organization ProPublica published an investigation finding that it takes the board, which oversees 350,000 licensees, an average of three years and five months to investigate and close complaints against nurses.

During that time, nurses accused of wrongdoing are free to practice — often with spotless records — and move from hospital to hospital. Potential employers are unaware of the risks, and patients have been harmed as a result.

Reporters found nurses who continued to work unrestricted for years despite documented histories of incompetence, violence, criminal convictions and drug theft or abuse. In dozens of cases, nurses maintained clean records in California even though they had been suspended or fired by employers, disciplined by another California licensing board or restricted from practice by other states.

Read Full Story Here

According to the latest figures from UK nursing regulator, NMC, there has been an 18% increase in complaints made against nurses and midwives.

An NMC report reveals that the regulator received 1,759 complaints judged to be suitable for further investigation in 2008-2009, an increase of over 18% compared to the 1,487 in 2007-2008.

This represents the highest number of allegations received by the UK’s largest health professional regulator since 2005, according to the NMC

Nearly 15% of complaints related to charges of dishonesty including theft, false claims to registration with the NMC and sleeping while on duty.

Ian Todd, director of fitness to practise at the NMC, said ‘We have no objective evidence to explain why the number of complaints has increased. However, members of the public have increasing expectations of the standards of care they should receive and we live in a consumer society in which people are more willing to complain when they have received poor care.’

Visit Nurses Forum for information about nursing jobs and travel nursing.

According to The U.S. Department of Labor’s March 2008 Employment Summary reports, employment in the health care sector continues to grow, adding 360,000 jobs during the past 12 months. The Labor Department estimates employment of registered nurses will grow 23 percent from 2006 to 2016 and the country will need 500,000 new RNs by 2016.

“I’ve been a nurse since 1969 and have experienced different economic up and down turns,” said Linda Norman, DSN, RN, FAAN, senior associate dean for academics at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Nashville, Tennessee. “There has always been a sustained need for nurses and a shortage of nurses.”

“Nursing not only is a recession-proof profession but it is one that has multiple opportunities,” Norman added. “The value of nursing is being appreciated throughout the health care industry.”

“The number of nurses who graduated has gone up during the last 40 years, but, the interesting piece is the demand for nurses also has increased,” Norman said. “Nursing programs have had difficulty keeping up with the demand.”

Pat Witzel, RN and chief nursing officer at Strong Memorial Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center located in New York, stated, “Nursing is not generally affected by the economy. People becoming ill or needing health care services is not dependent on what happens economically.”

The average age of a nurse  is almost 50 years with many possibly retiring soon.

“The workforce will be consistently losing nurses during the next five, 10, 15 years, and those nurses will need to be replaced,” said Hila Richardson, director of the undergraduate, continuing education and community health programs at New York University (NYU) College of Nursing.

Nursing jobs  and travel nursing  will always be in demand because people will always need medical care, however schools are just not producing enough nurses.

The following article was reported today by the Associated Press (AP)

MADISON, Wis. – A nurse was called out of surgery so a manager could tell her she was being laid off. Dean Health said the surgery was minor and the patient wasn’t affected, but the manager who summoned the nurse from surgery violated medical protocol. Dean Health spokesman Paul Pitas said the incident happened at Dean’s West Clinic in Madison on Wednesday or Thursday.

Pitas said there was a period of time in which a nurse wasn’t present during the procedure. He said while there were other clinical staff present, the absence of a nurse is a violation of patient care procedures.

The Madison-based health care provider announced Wednesday that it planned to “immediately” lay off 90 employees.

Pitas declined to name the employees involved or what type of surgery the nurse was attending when she was called away.

This article by Wendy J. Meyeroff, Monster.com contributing writer, talks about the nursing jobs shortage and what to consider when chosing a job offer. Because the demand is greater than the supply, nurses are now in the driver’s seat when it comes to chosing their careers. Read full article.