Friday | May 12, 2023

Healthcare starts with you. This is your beat.

☀️ Happy FriYAY TNB fam! 

It has been an absolute pleasure to celebrate Nurses Week from the perspective of planning for others! As my first year out of bedside care, I have a unique understanding of the needs of our community and wanted to be sure that it translated into the way we celebrated. We not only stand by our words, but we take action within the community, and part of this has been finding unique partners committed to our profession’s future. 

If you are a nurse interested in starting your own business, but you don’t know where to start, we are offering free sessions through Guardian Medical Direction to ten lucky nurses. The last day to enter is today! Enter below. 

With Gratitude,

Tamara AL-Yassin (aka Nurse T)

CEO | The Nursing Beat

💜 THE BONUS NURSES DESERVE GIVEAWAY WINNERS SPOTLIGHT 🔦

Thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate the nurse in your life - we were BLOWN AWAY by the responses and amazed at each and every submission. Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting some of our winners - sharing a little about their story and just how awesome they are. Also, a huge thank you to our partners Cherokee Uniforms, connectRN, and Guardian Medical Direction.  for helping making this giveaway happen for a group of truly phenomenal humans!

• David nominated his wife, Natasha - "Natasha loves mentoring & coaching new nurses. She was diagnosed last year with triple breast cancer - it's so hard and I love her so much."

• Karen was nominated by her daughter, Natalie - "For decades now (30 years!) she has been the nurse for an entire generation of kids at a title 1 (high needs) school."

• Chandi was nominated by her twin sister, Sona - "I already thought my twin sister was a super human as an oncology RN, but after COVID I wouldn't be surprised if she legit had superpowers."

• Jazzmine was nominated by her friend, Jennie - "Last year Jazzmine lost her house in the Boulder Marshall fires. She took time to care for herself but never missed a step caring for her patients."

MORNING BRIEF 🍳 ☕️

History of National Nurses Week

National Nurses Week was decades in the making. The fight began in 1953 when Dorothy Sutherland of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare proposed “Nurses Day,” but President Eisenhower never made the proclamation. National Nurses Week was celebrated in October 1954 to mark the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s mission to Crimea; a subsequent congressional bill didn’t pass. 

Over the next two decades, more proclamations for Nurses Day were unsuccessful. Finally, in 1974, the International Council of Nurses established May 12th as International Nurses Day, which prompted President Richard Nixon to issue a proclamation for National Nurses Week. The ANA lobbied for National Nurses Day, which was successful in 1982 with recognition from both Congress and the president. In 1990, the ANA petitioned to extend the celebration to a week, and it was granted; another petition in 1993 made National Nurses Week a permanent designation.

Six Nurses On a Cruise Ship Become Heroes

Minnesota nurses Jenni, Sandy, Jane, Cindy, Johannes, Joni, and Ann were on the week-long cruise to the Caribbean to celebrate Ann’s 50th birthday. They’re now being hailed as heroes for saving the life of a passenger while they were enjoying their vacation. 

On the second day of the cruise, Ann noticed an elderly woman in distress in the dining room. The Georgian woman was choking on food — her lips were blue, her complexion was gray, and she was unresponsive. A waiter from the cruise attempted to provide abdominal thrusts but wasn’t providing enough pressure. The team of nurses jumped to action, smacking the woman’s back until she started stirring, and they were able to get the piece of meat out of her. The woman took a few deep breaths and recovered.

Nurses Share the Best and Worst Gifts They’ve Received for Nurses Week

Patients, colleagues, employers, and loved ones often show appreciation for nurses through gifts, particularly during Nurses Week. But while some gifts may be heartwarming, others may be slightly insulting. ScrubsMag has a roundup of the best and worst gifts nurses have said they received during Nurses Week. 

On the “best” side, we have gifts like travel mugs, jackets, a fully cooked rotisserie chicken, and thank you notes written on paper towels by ICU patients after their laryngectomies. The “worst” side includes a host of oddities: a sticker and DIY recognition certificate, a painted rock, bottles of wine that weren’t enough for the entire nursing staff, a bracelet with an RN symbol on it, a cake with the wrong name on it, and a food truck carnival in which nurses paid for their lunches. 

What have been your best and worst gifts? Let us know at editor@thenursingbeat.com!

COMMUNITY PICKS 🌼 

If you feel like you’re in a creative rut, you might want to check out this book by Som Bathla: Think Out of The Box: Generate Ideas on Demand, Improve Problem-Solving, Make Better Decisions, and Start Thinking Your Way to the Top (Power-Up Your Brain). Readers boast it improves mental clarity and improves your creative flow!

💸 FINANCE FRIDAY powered by

Wedding Season

We all know that weddings are expensive for the bride and groom (on average $30,000), but what about the guests attending?

As we enter the wedding season, you may attend a couple over the next several months. A recent Bankrate survey found that around 38% of millennials and GenZers will attend a wedding this year, and about 62% of respondents have at least one financial concern. Have you planned accordingly? How much should you set aside to attend a wedding? 

Bankrate lists a few key areas to plan around, along with their average costs:

• Travel/accommodations: $300

• Attire/grooming: $200

• Gifts: $150

This excludes brunches, bachelor/bachelorette trips, or other extracurriculars! As you can see, even attending a wedding can add up quickly!

Start planning today by tracking your spending, eliminating items that don’t bring you value, and automating a portion of your money into a savings account. Visit our website for more downloads, blogs, and resources!

GUARDIAN MD BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT 🔦

Elite Concierge Nursing provides in-home nursing services, including wound care, respite care, infusions, and end-of-life doula services, to the residents of Eugene, Oregon, and surrounding areas. Elite Concierge Nursing was founded and is owned by registered nurse Victoria Ketterling.

"THE BEAT" WITH NURSE KEL

🎶The Tempo🎶

🎵The Backbeat🎵

🏋️The Workout🏋️

🎧Podcast of the Week🎧

DAILY DIVERSION 💊

Interested in more nursing-related history? Check out the Museum of Nursing History at La Salle University. The museum features a replica of Florence Nightingale’s dress and an enlarged framed letter from Miss Nightingale to Alice Fisher. It also houses a wealth of historical items — diaries, letters, books, uniforms, caps, and pins — donated by nurses across the globe. 

🤯 ONE BIG NUMBER

Thanks for reading! 🤓