Nurse Crisis Calls for Mindful Alert!

Many heroic nurses who help us all survive medical challenges, currently face increasing barriers to wellbeing in their field. Remember when Barak Obama’s youngest child suffered Meningitis and he raved about nursing care that restored her health? Now, just a few years later the entire nursing profession as we’ve valued it is in stark need of reconfiguration. One key global crisis – nurses continue to drop out at alarming rates, and with good reason.

My own interest in the nursing crisis comes from medical colleagues and especially nursing faculty that I certify in brain based practices at university.

One dean put it this way, “Fast growing problems in broken nursing systems could leave AIG and GM looking like world winners by comparison.” It doesn’t need to be that way.

Yet daily we still see medical disasters due to a broken system and disheartened medical professionals. It’s estimated 300,000 pre-mature deaths occur yearly, because of overwhelmed medical professionals, according to Faye Slattery. Growing medical professional problems impact us all, regardless of our profession. Medical researcher, Slattery, wrote the book, Where Have all the Nurses Gone? to show shocking health disasters as a result of a toxic, broken medical system.

Are health insurance companies such as BlueCross BlueShield at fault here? Not sure, but the medical field is so bad, that nurses warn others to avoid the profession altogether. A 2002 survey of nurses conducted by the American Nursing Association revealed that more than half did not recommend nursing profession to their friends. What happened to the passion and purpose that used to accompany this pivotal field? More importantly, what can be done to renew and rebuild?

One study published in Health Affairs in October, 2002, shows more than 40% of nurses dissatisfied with their jobs. No wonder they’re disappearing in droves! Furthermore, time is running out! Another study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, for instance, predicts that by year 2020, 400,000 more nurses will be needed than are now available. So what’s the solution?

Imagine a progressive university or health professional development organization, that uses research to turnaround nurse education programs! Visualize one transformational leader who would risk exchanging current health crisis for care of nurses and their clients. I’m convinced that the nursing field is ripe for just such dynamic transformational outcomes that could more than meet changing horizons in the medical field. Could it happen in your community?

See this article reprinted recently in Chicago Sun Times.

It starts with progressive professionals creating a vision, just as nurse faculty in Ireland recently published in Nurse Education Today. Next, a robust visionary will lead the charge to inspire others with new opportunities in a reconfigured system as European nurse leaders published in ScienceDirect.

The Mita brain based pathways and tactics we’ve used also draw collaboratively from an entire circle of nurses who commit to building innovative practices. Can you see a new prototype emerge that will attract top nurses and nurse entrepreneurs globally? A new climate for high performance minds, that sustains success through deep and passionate commitment that nurses typically add to health care?

In one brain conference, we implemented an intervention program that acted as a bulwark between ruts and rejuvenation. We designed brain based innovations that yielded measurable performance improvement. How so?

Here’s the skinny. One nurse director described an emergency department with low morale and constant complaints that detracted from a keen focus on patient care. From the time she opened her office until she locked it late at night, staff complained about everything from a lack of dollars to an abundance of frustrations at work.

This nurse director designed and implemented a successful brain based innovation that moved the group from cortisol toxins to serotonin kindness. Part of the innovation declared that no staff member would no longer be permitted to complain about a problem in her office, unless that complaint was accompanied by a proposed solution led by the staff member who complained. this brain based intervention worked wonders to facilitate an energized circle of colleagues who pulled together for finer outcomes.

Could you imagine a global turnaround through newly defined nursing roles that enrich the entire medical field?

Good news, the entire nursing profession awaits healthier pathways to reach new peaks. The moment is now! What would it take to support and re-energize those nurses in trenches where you live?