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Reasons why nurses should use social media

by Angela Brooks

In patient care nurses and health care workers have to defend the privacy of their patients and the fact that social media, and social apps are here to stay nurses need to know how to use social media the correct way.

For many people twitter, facebook, Google+ and other social sites are a place to get information and voice their opinions. Nurses need to understand the benefits and the risks of social networking so they don’t undermine their own professional reputation or their profession

* Never expose a patient’s information
* Never discuss what is going on with a co-worker specially by using their name
* Never share a photo of a patient on social media
* It is never a good idea to provide medical advice through social media

Social Media is a great place for nurses to research information for nursing education opportunities and conferences to attend. It is also a way to stay in touch with those that you met at a nursing event.

Social media, and in blogging in particular, have given me a connection to the world that I would never have otherwise. I am able to meet and become friends with people based purely upon our common interests without any dependence on our relative geographies.

If you are openly a nurse on social media, chances are you are passionate about nursing and health care. You can use this passion to inspire others to be passionate about nursing as well. This can increase job satisfaction among nurses and improve the care they provide. A happy nurse makes for happy patients with better outcomes.

For me personally I truly enjoy social media and the connections I have made with people from around the world. I have attended many business training events where I met people in person that I had connected with on facebook and twitter.

It has also given me views from other nurses and what frustrates them in nursing and what drives their passion as a nurse. Nurses who are burnt out that have found my blog have written to say they count relate with a post that was written.

Social media can be a place to uplift and encourage nurses that some days will be hard but the ones that keep us in the profession are the ones that make us smile and touch our hearts. Nurses connect with social media because we are need to refuel our own spirit connection when at times you feel like you’re the only one feeling a certain way.

Participating in social media in a professional manner can actually increase your ability to advance in nursing. Sounds silly doesn’t it? My husband used to jokingly say that one day I’d figure out how to get paid for “playing on the Internet.” He wasn’t far from the truth. I replaced my nursing income blogging and using social media.

Tell me your view on nurses using social media, do you? Post your comment below this post

Angela Brooks is a mental health nurse educator who spent the last 22 years working in a state funded mental hospital. She is the author of “The Nurses Voice” who exposes raw truth as a nurse. She is transitioning from nursing to one of the top positions in a health company changing life’s one oil at a time.

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I am just a nurse…

by Angela Brooks

The alarm goes off. You drag yourself out of bed to face another stressful day at work. You haven’t slept well the night before. Actually, come to think of it – you haven’t been sleeping well at all lately.

Nursing Burn out: You feel anxious, irritable, depressed and have trouble concentrating at work. You feel tired all the time and you no longer look forward to chatting with your colleagues at the coffee machine.

Most likely this is the first sign of stress and burn out…it is time for a change.

Signs and symptoms of excessive job and workplace stress

Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed
Apathy, loss of interest in work
Problems sleeping
Fatigue
Trouble concentrating

Muscle tension or headaches
Stomach problems
Social withdrawal
Loss of sex drive
Using alcohol or drugs to cope

We all know the food choices, good sleep and exercise is one of the better ways to deal with stress. Worry and dread can cause insomnia which leads to more worry and can lead to your emotional state to be off balance.

I hear people say well just change jobs!

I am pretty sure that is not the answer. Finding a good job is very important but also knowing that bouncing from one place to another is also stressful.

Nursing is a high stress job – taking care of people is stressful. The key is finding the outlets that work for you. I work in an environment that I have to lock all doors behind me, be aware of the people who are walking close to me and the ones that could be hiding. The state of unknown itself is stressful as to what is going to happen next.

Among new nurses the stress usually causes them to leave the field all together within three years. Seasoned nurses hang on because they do not feel like they have the experience to do anything else but to be a nurse. Lateral violence among co-workers, long work hours, not enough staff, dealing with their own family issues, high demands on the job keep them on their feet, documentation plus being aware of legal issues in charting and last but not least little time away from the job.

Diverse skills

Nurses possess many innate skills including teaching, counseling, and managing complex projects. These activities are second nature to us. We do them every day without thinking about them. They’re so much a part of who we are, we’re often unable to isolate them to transfer into other areas of work. For example, I recently talked to a nurse who had worked in an oncology unit for 15 years. She told me she wanted to apply for a counseling position but that she didn’t have any experience. In reality, she had 15 years of counseling experience. She just didn’t see it.

Nurses possess excellent communication skills, too. Stop and think about the many cultures diverse group of people and family units that a nurse talks too in the course of her work experience. Her communication skills have to be ready to change from one group to another and even at times find someone to translate the conversation for the best care. Not only is she speaking to families she is talking to doctors who are not always the easiest people to work with and advocate for her patients when she knows he is missing something in their care.

Want to talk business? We’re totally customer service oriented, always looking out for the needs and concerns of our patients. Nurses are even natural salespeople. Every time you have to convince a patient to adhere to a regimen, or follow up on a test, you’re selling a concept or idea. We work well under pressure, are team players, and have never had a “That’s not my job” attitude. Even a nurse right out of nursing school or college possesses a body of knowledge that is valuable in many arenas.

Very few nurses want to leave the profession 100%, they still want to serve and give to their patients and no matter how bad it is some days there is something that makes them go back day after day. What I hear most would like to do is work part time but they don’t know what else they can do.

Nurses are business team players who can serve a bigger group of people than they give themselves credit for. Are you delaying starting your nurse business because you don’t know where to begin? If that is you, click here… not only do we provide the what but the how. See ya there.

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A Nurses’ rambling thoughts …who are they really?

by Angela Brooks

I sat and watched them as they walked by; I paused eating my lunch, laid my fork on the plate. I watched as each person walked by in single file shuffling their feet in slip on house shoes and sweat pants that one size fit most style.

The faces were blank, shoulders slumped, and their eyes looked empty. A sole lived medicated inside the shell I could see.

My heart ached as I looked at the faces I have seen for so many years. Who were they really? What was their dream when they were 10 years old? Once upon a time they were cradled in a mother’s arms and sat on a daddy’s lap. What brought them to this place?

No matter how long I have worked in mental health I am still curious when you meet someone as to what events in their life brought them to the place they are in now.

I have seen people arrive in complete mania, fighting the staff, screaming, throwing things and they really don’t even know what makes them that angry. They are medicated to help settle them down to a more normal, or I should say cooperative state of mind.

After years of this type of behavior families get tired and don’t know what to do any more. They try to continue supporting the family member until they slowly stop coming to visit due to the out breaks of different moods, they call less and less, cards and special gifts stop coming arriving in the mail. The staff becomes the closest family they have.

The long single file line continues down the lane, no one talking, just shuffling along. I hear my name called and a man who I have worked with for 15 years flashed a smile and waved as he has always done.

I waved back and called his name “Hey!”. The exchange was short …less than a minute; he drops his head and keeps moving with the group. As if to drop back into his own thinking looking at the floor as he walked.

They are locked into their own mind, the life they chose to follow or the one that played out as it did lead them to this place. Where dreams go to sleep, daily task become a routine as a group, meals and snacks are only at certain times and sleep comes when the medication take over. It is sad.

As a nurse, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend I too had fallen into the routine of shuffling along in life living by a schedule someone else handed to me. I even ask permission to spend time away from the hospital. Time had slipped by so fast that I had not realized how many patients I had watched age over the years. They came in young and full of life and now they are shuffling along with a group as if their sole laid quietly inside with no voice to speak.

From the time we are very small we a voice that speaks inside that tells us to do things or to not do things but we tell it to hush…after spending a life time of hushing the dream it stops calling our name and we shuffle along with life.

When I stopped the shuffle and made a decision I wanted more, I wanted the dream, I wanted to stop asking permission and living on someone else’s schedule. Then and only then… did my dream start coming true. I want to see your dreams come true….do you? I would love to help you.