Tag Archives: nurse blogs

Bringing Beauty and Creativity to Nursing Practice

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Note: A reader emailed a request I write about bringing beauty and creativity to nursing practice. Here goes…

Nurse as Sisyphus by jparadisi 2012

Nurse as Sisyphus by jparadisi 2012

Finding beauty and creativity in our daily lives is vital for happiness. Art is a path along which the breadcrumbs leading us to both are found. This statement seems pretentious in a society cutting the study of art (music, dance, literature, painting, and drawing) from its educational system, regarding it no more necessary than so much fat sucked away through liposuction. Access to art is also eroding: on a recent trip, my husband and I paid $15 each for admittance to an art museum. Without funding, art, like health care, may soon be accessible to a decreasing number of people.

Art is essential in bringing beauty and creativity to nursing practice because it provides the humanitarian tools needed to find self-worth in a job that is complex, and often overwhelming, with waves of life and death crashing over our heads. It’s easier to empty a bedpan if you consider Prometheus and his love of humanity while you clean. For other nursing tasks, the punishment of futility dealt to Sisyphus perhaps comes to mind more often. The longevity of Shakespeare’s plays speaks to their grasp of human psychology and motivation.

Art and literature provide archetypes we can apply to our modern lives.  Excluding the arts from a life science curriculum leaves us searching for meaning without a compass. The ability to apply meaningful ideas from art and literature to our daily lives promotes sustainable happiness.

Connecting patient care to images from art and literature fuels my writing and painting. It protects me from burnout. I credit it with the fact I still love being a nurse twenty-five years after becoming one. In the words of James M. Barrie,

“It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.”

Gate Keepers: This Week’s Post for TheONC

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In oncology, nurses are often faced with hanging chemotherapy, assisting with surgeries, or radiation treatments for grim diagnoses most likely to result in death anyway. Sometimes we wonder why treatment is offered. This week for TheONC, I ask these questions from nursing and artist perspectives in the post Gate Keepers.

TheONC is an online community for oncology professionals. Follow us on Twitter @The-ONC, and Like us on Facebook.

Nurses Week: New Posts For TheONC

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From Cradle to Grave: The Color White, Charcoal, ink, watercolor on paper by jparadisi

Whether you’re an aspiring artist, writer, or cancer patient, support groups can offer encouragement and resources to help you on the journey. This week at TheONC, I write about unexpected pitfalls of support groups, and how to spot a healthy one in my post Support Groups: In Sickness and In Health.

Last week, TheONC posted my blog, Controlling Our Own Image. Identity is a theme I work with often both in paint, and words. I have some strong thoughts that it’s time nurses create the image we want the media to portray. The post received a flurry of well thought out comments. If you’re not a writer or artist, it’s worth thinking about how you can improve the image of nursing in your own practice.

TheONC is an online community for oncology health care providers to share information and resources. Follow us on Twitter @The_ONC and Like us on Facebook.

Happy Nurses Week!

The Rise of Blogs in Nursing Practice

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Joni Watson presents blogging’s validity as a useful tool for the professional growth of nurses in her article, The Rise of Blogs in Nursing Practice, published in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing (CJON, April 2012, Vol. 16, No. 2). In the article, Watson guides nurses through integrating blog information into their practices.

Joni Watson authors the blog Nursetopia, and contributes posts for the ONS blog Re:Connect.

Joni opened her article with paragraph from a JParadisiRN post (used with permission). Citing blog posts in journal publishing indicates the growing legitimacy of the medium.

Other blogs noted in the article are Emergiblog, Nursing Center’s In the Round (Lisa Bonsall), The Nerdy Nurse, and of course, Off the Charts, the blog of the American Journal of Nursing.

Knitting for Communication This Week at TheONC

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This week, I blog about Knitting and Communication for TheONC. It’s a confessional post about lacking the right words for a friend with cancer, and finding a way to communicate through the craft of knitting. Sometimes pushing through frustration is necessary in creativity and relationships.

TheONC is an online community for oncology health care teams. Follow on Twitter @The_ONC and Like us on Facebook!

Stains Update: Share Your Advice

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Yesterday I wrote about efforts to remove yellow Easter candy dye stains from my favorite pair of white jeans. Today I’m happy to report after four washings, heavy doses of Shout, and gentle touches of bleach, the jeans are restored to pristine status.

Had my efforts failed, however, I had a back up plan. I received this advice from a reader and pass it on to you:

Mix some laundry detergent with white vinegar and rub on stain.  Let set – like over night.

Soak the stained area in white vinegar over night.

Wash.

Do not dry.  Check stain. 

Repeat.

If you have helpful stain removing tips,  please share them in the comments. Stains of an unusual variety plague nurses regularly. We can use all the help we can get!

By the way, Visualizing Your Creative Life is my latest post included among this week’s blogs at TheONC. The suggestions are easily adapted for use by oncology patients too.

Stains

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Stains photo: jparadisi 2012

It’s a rare night that I can’t sleep. I’m trying to remove, without waking David, yellow vegetable dye stains of crumbled bits of a bunny-shaped chocolate truffle I ate yesterday, from my favorite pair of white jeans. Undergoing their third washing, they appear permanently stained. Perhaps it’s time to pronounce them, but I’m not ready to let go yet. Why is it easier to remove bloodstains from clothing than yellow Easter candy dye? Sigh.

Not a single car or pedestrian moves along the street outside. If not for David’s rhythmic breathing I might consider I was left behind after the post-apocalyptic rapture.  I’m too much of an optimist to convince myself of this, however. I remember hearing of a boy, home alone, who locked himself in a closet, fearing the rapture occurred and he’d been left behind. His parents found him crying in the closet when they came home.

The yellow dye clings to the white denim like sin; evidence of enjoying a chocolate treat (gluttony), or simple sloppiness (sloth)? I only care because I really like these jeans.

How simple is my life, that a pair of stained jeans is the topic of a post?

I wonder if any of my patients are also sleepless tonight, wrestling with pain, fear or nausea? Are they afraid of being left behind, or more afraid of what they leave behind? This thought makes me sad. I’d rather think about removing yellow candy stains from my white jeans.

Is that a sin?

New Creativity Blog Post Up at TheONC

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This week’s blog for TheONC is The Art of Subtraction: More Thoughts on Clutter. The topic is based on my experience of watching a professional sculptor make a likeness of a model’s face, by removing clay, not adding. The experience opened up my eyes to a new way of living a creative life.

I am the guest at the baby shower who always wins that game where you shove a bunch of bubble gum in your mouth, chewing and chewing until you get a big, pink glob, which you are required to mold into the shape of a baby. The best sculptor wins. Here’s my secret for winning: put a tiny butt crack in the back of the bubble gum baby; it is irresistible to the woman judging it.

Clutter Be Gone! Mental Clutter Off Switch at TheONC & AJN Releases iPad App Tomorrow

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Shutting down the mental clutter of work after your shift is over is the topic of my post for TheONC this week. Included are Ideas for creating a “mental clutter shut-off switch,” and readers are responding with their own methods too. You can follow TheONC on Twitter @The_ONC and Facebook.

Going digital cuts down on physical clutter, and I am excited the American Journal of Nursing releases its iPad app tomorrow on iTunes. Tomorrow only, April 28, the app is free!

Commitment Makes You an Artist (or Nurse)

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If you aren’t reading the blogs at TheONC, you should. I’ve incorporated much new information from my blogger colleagues into my nursing practice. If you haven’t created a login and joined this lively online community, today is a great day to do so!

pencil on paper by jparadisi

Commitment Makes You an Artist (or Nurse) is my contribution this week’s discussion. Creativity, like nursing, requires time and practice. In this article I offer some practical advice to get you started.

While I’m on the topic of commitment, today is Certified Nurses Day. I hold OCN certification as an oncology nurse. In the past, I was pediatric CCRN certified. Specialty certification is a powerful way for nurses to commit to their practice. Congratulations to nurses who have taken this extra step in professional development and providing excellence in patient care!