Montel Williams loves his nurses. That’s why he came to New Orleans to speak to the chapter presidents of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses at their annual AACN conference last week.

Montel knows nurses. He has had more than average contact with the likes of us, both in and out of the hospital. He told AACN attendees stories about his ordeals and how nurses were there to ease the way. Emotions were flowing as he spoke to us from the heart.

We loved hearing ...

I just read that the ubiquitous "THEY" have discovered biomarkers that can detect Alzheimer's disease years before symptoms surface. These proteins, found in cerebral spinal fluid, predict Alzheimer's with 87 percent accuracy, long before dementia becomes apparent.

This may open up a whole new chapter in preventive testing. I am all ready to go out and get my CSF checked just to make sure I am clean. And I bet I wont be the only one.

Along with my mammogram, ...

The buses are coming! The buses are coming! And the porta potties are already here!

Because I live just 9 miles from the Capitol in Washington, DC, I thought I'd take a cruise downtown last night to see how things were shaping up for the presidential inauguration ceremonies that will take place this coming Tuesday.

At 9 o' clock at night, the city looked almost deserted...a far cry from what it will be in a few days when several million people are expected to descend ...

Leave it to emergency room nurses to make waves that will create changes. That’s what The 2008 ENA National Scorecard on State Roadway Laws: A Blueprint for Injury Prevention is doing.

The Emergency Nurses Association’s compilation of evidence-based safe driving practices is something to make every driver and every passenger take notice. An update from its 2006 ENA National Scorecard on State Highway Laws, it shows us what simple and inexpensive measures we can use to save lives ...

It's New Year's resolution time again. Every year right about now, my thoughts turn to how I want to do things differently this year. And every year, I find myself dragging out and dusting off the resolutions from previous years: exercise, organize, nutrition-ize. Will this be the year to get it right?

I heard on TV yesterday ways to make NY's resolutions stick. The secret, a TV psychologist said, is to enlist a buddy to help you. This buddy would be a cross between a cheerleader ...

Nurses are going to have to justify they are worth their salaries before long. I'm talking dollars and cents here. With the economy the way it is, hospitals and other businesses are having to scale back and cut the fluff to keep afloat.

Because so many don't understand what our work is, even the colleagues we work with every day, many of us may be considered expendable when it comes to making cuts.

I guess we cant blame those in positions of authority for not understanding ...

Nothing makes me feel more out of it than when it comes to trying to figure out what to get my 7 year old grandson for a present. Nerf ball? Hot Wheels? Legos? Not any more. It seems that this year, according to his mother, he wants something called Bakugan.

So what's Bakugan? I'm still trying to figure it out.

I went online to my usual sources to learn more. Despite the fact that it's being passionately embraced by the grade school set, Wikipedia has yet to discover ...

My eyes were glazed and I was crying out for mercy. Those columns of numbers and rows of statistics were numbing my brain. I was having a hard time attending to what was being said and had to force myself to pay attention.

Meanwhile, the financial expert I was with could hardly contain her enthusiasm. She was so proud of all those figures spread over the 5 pages that lay on the table between us. I was not believing the glee with which she went over each detail. I looked on in amazement ...

“No one ever thinks they have enough money or enough love, no matter how much they may have.” So says my daughter-in-law, quoting an old Russian saying.

This wise pronouncement stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. It’s true. No matter what we may have, we always seem to want more. But often enough, what we already have is enough.

Why is it that too often we dont recognize and appreciate the valuable gifts we already have—be it health, friends, family, ...

“No one ever thinks they have enough money or enough love, no matter how much they may have.” So says my daughter-in-law, quoting an old Russian saying.

This wise pronouncement stopped me in my tracks the first time I heard it. It’s true. No matter what we may have, we always seem to want more. But often enough, what we already have is enough.

Why is it that too often we dont recognize and appreciate the valuable gifts we already have—be it health, friends, family, ...

Something's working. The CDC says the smoking rate has dropped below 20% for the first time on record. The credit is given for these reasons: smoking bans in public places, higher taxes that drive up prices, and more medications to help people quit.

I would like to thing that one of the reasons people decide to quit is because of a nursing intervention. When I practiced as an NP, I could tell someone smoked pretty quickly--you could smell the smoke on their clothes, their breath, ...

I'm a sucker for infomercials. If you think about what they can do, they work wonders. They take us from the experience of complete disinterest in their product to being sold and unable to be without it. I'm wondering if we can take a lesson from their lure to tell folks about nursing.

Here's how it all began:

I'm pondering whether to buy an aqua globe as a favor to my potted plants. You know what those are, don't you? They're the glass bubbles with hollow spikes that ...

I was at a conference at the Maryland Nurses Association conference a few weeks ago and heard Kristen Welker-Hood, RN, MSN, ScD speak about global warming and what lies ahead for us as far as health problems are concerned. She's with the organization Physicians for Social Responsibility and has a passion for this topic, as well as the scientific background needed to fully understand it.

Welker-Hood maintains that as temperatures rise, our health will surely decline and that we are ...

Flu season is approaching and here I am, once again, plotting how I'm going to get immunized this year. Yes. It's true. I am a believer. I make the effort to get a flu shot every year, but it is never easy. It shouldn't be so hard to get a flu shot, but it is.

Last year, the drug stores in my area were dishing out flu shots in the pharmacies. I had to Google where the drug stores were that were participating and the days and hours nurses would be there giving the shots. I made plans ...