Change of Shift, Vol. 5, Number 6

The newest edition of Change of Shift, the premier nursing blog carnival, is now up and running over at Emergiblog.

I'm pleased to again be included as a contributor, and my thanks as always to Kim at Emergiblog for being a champion of nurse bloggers around the world. Kim has worked tirelessly to promote the many nurse bloggers who pour out their hearts and souls to describe the joys, frustrations, challenges and rewards of the incredibly varied profession of nursing. She remains ahead of the virtual curve, and inspires us all to continue writing and sharing our experiences with the world.

Change of Shift, Vol. 5, Number 5

Please pay a visit to the newest edition of Change of Shift. I am very happy to once again be included in this fine collection of blogging by nurses.

Change of Shift, Vol. 5, Number 4

Yet another edition of Change of Shift is up and at 'em, bringing the world some of the best nurse bloggers on the web. So, make yourself an iced tea (or maybe a gin and tonic), curl up on the hammock, and help yourself to some good summer reading!

Change of Shift, Vol. 5, Number 3

I am honored to report that my most recent submission to Change of Shift (everyone's favorite nursing blog carnival) is featured as the "editor's choice" at the top of this week's edition. I hope you can stop by, peruse this week's offerings, and praise Kim from Emergiblog for her consistently excellent work.

Change of Shift, Vol. 5, Number 2

The latest edition of Change of Shift is now published over at Emergiblog. I actually managed to submit two blog posts to this edition, and I'm pleased to have been included.

Change of Shift Turns Five!

Change of Shift, everyone's favorite nursing blog carnival, has just celebrated five years of publication with it's most recent edition. Congratulations and gratitude to Kim at Emergiblog for being a tireless advocate on behalf of the many talented nurse bloggers who pour their hearts out and share their stories time and time again.

Happy 5th birthday to Change of Shift, and may there be many years to come!

Change of Shift, Santa Fe Style!

Well, after a long hiatus, I'm finally hosting Change of Shift once again, and I'm happy to do so from the comfort of our new home here in Santa Fe, New Mexico! (For those of you unfamiliar with Change of Shift, it is a nursing blog carnival wherein nurses from around the blogosphere are featured in an "online magazine" that is hosted on a different nursing blog every two weeks.)

For those readers who are new to Digital Doorway, my wife and I sold our home in Massachusetts last summer, sold or gave away most of our things, bought an RV, and have been traveling the country for seven months and almost 10,000 miles in search of a new place to call home.

For the moment, we've settled (perhaps temporarily, perhaps not) here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and you can read about our travels here. That said, this episode of Change of Shift (that most venerable of nursing blog carnivals) will be peppered with photographs from around northern New Mexico for no other reason than the fact that they're nice to look at, entertaining, or simply a visual break from all of those pesky words that I'm making you read (unless, of course, you just look at the pictures!).

My thanks, as always, to Kim (of Emergiblog fame) for making Change of Shift a reality, and for putting nurse bloggers on the blogosphere map. Let's hear it for Kim (cue virtual applause, please).

So, without further ado, here are the participants in this week's edition of Change of Shift, Volume 4, Number 26..........

For whatever reason, it seems that lists are incredibly popular these days, whether it be for iPad apps or the best ways to darn socks, so here's a list of blog posts that feature lists about things that their authors think are worth our while to peruse........

At NursingSchools.net, we learn 50 things you never knew about babies (who would have thought that babies cry before they're born?); while over at The Health Harbinger, we are privy to 25 online startups that are democratizing medical data and information.

Speaking of iPad applications, CNA Class Online shares 5 Excellent iPad apps for "Dr. Mom".

And while we're talking about new technology, RN to MSN Programs submitted a list of 10 awesome Android apps for nurses (Android being Google's answer to Internet-based applications for cellular phones, more or less).

Sadly, we all do indeed need to think about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and NursingSchools.net submitted a sobering list of the 10 biggest health dangers behind the oil spill, which includes neurological disorders (and chemical sensitivity, I'll add) among the workers dealing directly with this toxic nightmare of the century.

Thinking globally, The Health Hawk shares with us 17 intriguing infographics about global health, which, apropos of the oil spill, describes the fact that the average American driver uses 500 gallons of gasoline per year! (And we wonder why we're still addicted to oil?)

And the lists go on.......

Aging Healthy submits a list of the top 50 aging and gerontology blogs for those of us who want to prolong our time on earth (oil spills or no oil spills....), and NursingSchools.net submits yet another post for our enjoyment and enlightenment, this time with 100 entertaining and inspiring quotes for nurses, one of my favorites being "Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say" (W.H. Auden).

And speaking of NursingSchools.net, we received yet another list (don't they work over there?), this time regarding the 100 best blogs for exploring alternative medicine.

Moving away from lists towards actual prose (cue English teachers cheering in the background), we were happy to receive a submission from Barbara Olson of Florencedotcom fame, this particular piece on "Good Reads About Medication Misadventures" being recently published on Medscape (for which a username and password may be necessary in order to gain access).

And when it comes to those of us who might like a career change from direct care, Master of Health Administration shares with us "The Ultimate Guide to Health Administration Careers" (and the salaries don't seem half bad.......). Alternatively, Online LPN to RN delivers The Ultimate Guide to Nursing Agencies for those nurses who would like some assistance in landing their next job or plotting a career move.

Nurse Teeny at The Makings of a Nurse offers a very personal post about "transition shock" and a new job, something we can all probably relate to.

And over at Nurse Me, the author struggles with a situation wherein a patient's religious beliefs impact her ability to deliver the care that's needed in a post entitled Science vs Jesus.

Author Peggy McDaniel at The American Journal of Nursing's Off The Charts blog chimes in for a post entitled "Protection or Harm----What Are You Doing at the Bedside?", and there is much sobering food for thought here vis-a-vis poor hand hygiene and hospital-acquired infections.

In a post entitled "Fingerprints, Ad Nauseum", yours truly posits that there is utter bureaucratic insanity behind the need to be fingerprinted for every job application and license change that one must undergo (especially here in the Western US). Can't there be a central databank of fingerprints, or does the FBI just adore receiving multiple fingerprint cards for the same person over and over again? (It's your tax dollars hard at work, folks!)

And from the Land Down Under, Nurse In Australia shares a post entitled "Sheepish, Demure Nurses Pander to Inflated Egos". The nurse-doctor relationship is always something worth talking about, isn't it?


Our final two posts for this edition of CoS are well-written missives that address two very important issues worthy of our individual and collective attention.

First, Katie Morales of NursesNetwork.com (where my blog currently feeds automatically via RSS) discusses the legal and ethical notion of how companies profit financially with the use of our tissue and blood, whether we donated it willingly or not. In her post entitled "Not Much Has Changed, Katie offers several examples wherein companies benefited significantly from the cells or tissues of private citizens who then have no rights whatsoever to also benefit from the millions of dollars made from tissues harvested from their own bodies. What's the matter with this picture?

And last but certainly not least, our beloved Kim McAllister, the maven of Emergiblog and the creator of Change of Shift itself, delivers a passionate and convincing open letter to the American Nurses Association that rightly questions the ANA's refusal to endorse the creation of the Office of the National Nurse.

HR 4601 is an important piece of legislation currently making its way through Congress that would elevate the Chief Nursing Officer of the Public Health Service to the position of The National Nurse, a move that would bring nursing to the fore in terms of preventive health and the public's understanding of what nurses actually do. In March of this year, I wrote a blog post delineating how the National Nurse would benefit the country in myriad ways, and I invite you to read that post, read Kim's letter, visit the website of The National Nurse organization, and get involved in this important fight for recognition of nursing's rightful place at the American health care table.

Teddy Roosevelt once coined the term "the bully pulpit" to signify a position of authority or rank that gives it's holder the right and privilege to pontificate and share his or her opinions without reserve. While I hold little authority or rank in society as a simple nurse and writer, this blog is my own bully pulpit, and hosting Change of Shift is yet another opportunity to speak my mind and reach a larger audience, if only for a fleeting digital moment. I am grateful for your attention, and I urge you to contact your member of Congress about wholeheartedly supporting HR 4601!

Thank you to Kim for this opportunity, thanks to those of you who are taking the time to read this, and a special thanks to the bloggers and writers whose contributions made this edition of Change of Shift what it is.

And in the words of Garrison Keillor, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch."

Change of Shift at "The Makings of a Nurse"

The latest edition of Change of Shift is now up at blog called "The Makings of Nurse". After a hiatus, I actually managed to submit a blog post for this edition, and I look forward to hosting Change of Shift myself at the end of June.

Change of Shift at Muse, RN

A Nurses' Week edition of Change of Shift is now up at Muse, RN. Please pay her a visit and read some of the best nurse blogging around.

Change of Shift is Here Again!

The newest edition of Change of Shift, the premier nurse blog carnival, is now ready for your reading pleasure by clicking here. Enjoy, and one of these days I'll actually get around to contributing regularly again, myself!

Change of Shift at Nurse Me

Nurse Me, yet another nursing blog worth perusing, is hosting this week's edition of Change of Shift. Change of Shift is, of course, everyone's favorite nursing blog carnival.

An April Fools Change of Shift

Dr. Dean over at The Millionaire Nurse Blog has just published an April Fools Day edition of Change of Shift, everyone's favorite bi-weekly nursing blog carnival. And lo and behold, I even managed to submit an article this time! Pay a visit if you can!

Mamatrauma Hosts Change of Shift

New nurse and blogger Mamatrauma is hosting Change of Shift this week. Please surf over and pay her a visit to read some of the freshest blogging by nurses on the web!

Happy New Year From Change of Shift

The first edition for 2010 of Change of Shift, everyone's favorite nursing blog carnival, is up and running. I thought that I had submitted a post for this edition which is inaugurating the new year and new decade, but alas, I didn't make it this time. Still, there's plenty to read over there, so enjoy!

A Hallowe'en Change of Shift

A thrilling edition of Change of Shift is up at Reality Rounds.....Enter if you dare.....

Change of Shift, Direct From BlogWorld Expo!

Here is a link to the latest edition of Change of Shift, sent from the BlogWorld/NewMedia Expo in Las Vegas by none other than Change of Shift founder, Kim of Emergiblog.

Change of Shift Emerges on Emergiblog

Change of Shift, the blog carnival where nursing meets the web, has emerged once again on Emergiblog. Stop on over!

Change of Shift at Medic 999

The newest edition of Change of Shift, the famous nursing blog carnival, is up and ready for visiting at Medic 999. Pay a visit!

Happy Birthday to Emergiblog!

I want to take this opportunity to say Happy Fourth Birthday to Kim and her blogging brain-child Emergiblog. Kim birthed Emergiblog four years ago, and like one of my blogger colleagues said in a recent email, she is a force to be reckoned with. 

Emergiblog is on the top of many lists of the best health, medicine and nursing blogs, and Kim has strengthened her spot as a top blogger by creating the inimitable and widely recognized Change of Shift, a blog carnival devoted---but not limited---to all things nursing. 

This is simply a moment to reflect on the gifts that Kim has given to the world with her passion for writing, blogging, Health 2.0 and nursing, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for all she has done to advance our collective cause. 

Happy Birthday, Kim and Emergiblog---and many more! 

Change of Shift Begins Year Four of Publication!

Change of Shift, nursing blog carnival extraordinaire, is celebrating it's third birthday and the beginning of it's fourth year of publication. I am honored that Bob the Nurse is once again featured in this week's edition, and perhaps Bob will receive more invitations to travel the country from this continued exposure. 

Speaking of Bob, please stop by his blog and check out his latest adventures in Hawaii. He leaves for Arkansas soon, so new travels and destinations await, and he will no doubt pop up on Change of Shift regularly!