If you pick up a can of soup and find that the sodium levels are lower than you expected, or that a food item advertises it has “less sugar” or “no MSG” ... then there may be cause for alarm.

A relatively young company, Senomyx, may be responsible for the sodium and sugar levels falling in various grocery store items. They may be putting chemicals into your food right now, without telling you and without you even realizing. Under the law, they don’t have to.

Senomyx ...

I’m confused. Don’t TV producers know that for the last seven years nurses ranked number one in Gallup's annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions survey?

The two nurses they introduced to us this spring definitely don’t fit the profile of top-notch professionals. Showtime’s Nurse Jackie and TNT’s Hawthorne walk on the wrong side of the law or disregard ethics guidelines at least once an episode. Still, I hear many nurses and lots of other TV viewers really like these characters. ...

I graduated from an ADN program in 1982 at the age of 30. I had four children from ages 12 to 3. It was a stressful time for me. Trying to make good grades, completing all the homework took up so much of time I felt guilty for the time I lost with my children. I then went to work a month after graduating in the Emergency Room. This was my not idea, but the Director of Nurses decided I "looked like I would do well in the ER and cross train in ICU" I was in shock, but too intimidated to ...

Bear with me as I deliver another critical commentary on the latest
series starring TV RNs.

Nurse Jackie and HawthoRNe were bad enough, but at least they aired on cable to a limited audience. Mercy, a prime-time show that premiered Sept. 22, appears on NBC, a major network, free of charge.
The main character, Veronica, played by Taylor Schilling, carries enough personal baggage to warrant a separate series about her emotional life. An Iraqi War veteran with post traumatic ...

Although nurse vacancy rates are currently low (due to the economic recession) and nurses are finding it more difficult to find jobs, we are still facing a severe nursing shortage. According to Peter Buerhaus’ projections, we will continue to experience a shortage of registered nurses reaching 260,000 by 2025.

As our schools of nursing strive to produce new graduates to meet the growing demand, they are stretched to capacity and unable to accommodate all qualified applicants. At last ...

During the holiday season children excitedly put together lists of toys they hope Santa will bring. My childhood years are far behind me but I still have a penchant for making lists and believe in the love and generosity of the season. So, here is my 2009 holiday list that I’m dropping into Santa’s special letter box this year.

This holiday season, Santa please;

v Bring us innovative strategies to retain the mature nursing workforce,
v Reduce regulatory and reimbursement ...

Around this time of year readers and critics alike post lists of favorite books, so I'm going to follow suit.
Some of the books are written by nurses, others by physicians, and others by just plain good writers.
Here's a list of some of my all-time favorites in no particular order — fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Take your pick, and share your list with the rest of us.

1. Between the Heartbeats: Poetry and Prose by Nurses, eds. Cortney Davis & ...

He was 94, and at that age, my grandfather said, ‘You shouldn’t buy unripe bananas.’” Chris Tyler, an RN from Florida, wrote those words in an End of Shift article that appeared in our magazines.
Those words, along with the advice in our March 8 cover story, got me thinking about my journey as a nurse. If green bananas represent risk and hope, I’ve bought many of them in my life and been lucky enough to see them ripen to a tasty bright yellow.
I’m sure your stories have taken as ...

When people ask me what’s on my mind about nursing these days, my thoughts invariably turn to new graduates and the challenging job market they are facing.
The story of Susan is a good example. Susan had a 10-year career as a teacher but always wanted to be a nurse, so when she was getting ready to re-enter the job market after her children started school, she went back to school to realize her lifelong dream. To finance her education, she used all her savings, took out student loans and ...

The Plight of the New Graduate

We sought them out and urged them on — high school and grammar school students, young and middle-aged adults searching for a meaningful second career. We told men and boys that nursing was cool, a great career choice filled with adventure and challenge. And they enrolled in schools of nursing in record numbers in the last few years.
Then, the economy went south. They graduated and started applying for positions. All too often, I’ve heard that ...

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, my mother was hospitalized. Her surgery went well and she is recuperating as expected. However, the event occurred at a time when I was deep in thought about the future of nursing and creating an exemplary healthcare experience.

As I sat at my mother’s bedside in the ICU and later in the step-down unit, I observed the nurses and other members of the healthcare team and contemplated the experience through the lens of a family member instead of ...

Among the new members of 112th Congress sworn in on January 4, 2011 were four nurses – Renee Elmers, R-NC, Diane Black, R-Tenn, Ann Marie Buerkle, R-NY, and Karen Bass, D-Calif – bringing the total number of nurses currently serving in Congress to seven. In addition, many nurses serve in elected and appointed positions in state legislatures and local governments across the nation.

Yet, nurses remain largely invisible in policy making circles.

For years nurses quietly ...

I started my day writing my first ever resignation letter as an RN. Where do you start? Quite ironic since this week should have been my first week out of orientation when I would have been "set-free" from my perceptor's eagle eyes and the constant scrutiny of being "the new kid on the block" from the rest of the staff. I am a new grad. what seemed like a "quickie" two year journey to finish an ADN actually took forever to finish. This was supposed to be a second ...

When Winkler County nurse Ann Mitchell was acquitted of all charges on February 11th, I joined nurses across the country in breathing a huge sigh of relief. Mitchell was facing third degree felony charges after she and fellow nurse, Vicki Galle, reported a physician to the Texas Board of Medicine for unsafe practice. The more I followed the case, the more I wondered how efforts to stop unsafe practice could possibly result in jail time.

As nurses, we are familiar with the Nurse Practice ...

I am curious to find out if private Duty Nursing is still plentyful in NYS, if so where are they?