Tag Archives: entertainment

New Episode! Is There a Doctor in The House? The Adventures of Nurse Niki

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The Adventures of Nurse Niki
The Adventures of Nurse Niki

Is There a Doctor in The House?  The Adventures of Nurse Niki Chapter 29, posted this morning. Niki and her sister Raquel go out for cocktails and girl talk, but their evening out is interrupted.

The Adventures of Nurse Niki has a new format. The homepage is now static with Chapter One, like a book. The latest chapters are found by clicking the chapter number above the blog’s header, or from the Chapters drop down box at the upper left corner. Each chapters now has a brief description. The changes are in response to suggestions by faithful readers (you know who you are) and are intended to make The Adventures of Nurse Niki friendly to first-time readers, while keeping navigation easy for those following the story from its beginning.

Off the Charts has this to say about The Adventures of Nurse Niki:

This blog is made up entirely of first-person episodes told by a fictional nurse named Niki. Each episode is short, detailed, and engaging, and it’s easy to keep up with it on a regular basis, or quickly catch up if you haven’t yet read any episodes. Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor/blog editor

Kevin Ross, aka @InnovativeNurse wrote a review of The Adventures of Nurse Niki, with this highlight:

Julianna has embarked on something special for the nursing community. The Adventures Of Nurse Niki is one of the most intelligent perspectives of life as a nurse. These are the experiences of a “real nurse” if you ask me. Nurse Niki is a smart and dynamic character who works night shift in the PICU at a California hospital. A good television show or fiction novel could certainly draw out the sexiness of working in the ICU, but with Niki’s story we quickly discover that this dynamic character is also struggling to cope with life at the bedside, and as a mother and wife. Hidden within each chapter the discovery is that Nurse Niki is in fact you. She’s me. Well that is of course if I was a woman.

You can interact with Niki on The Adventures of Nurse Niki’s  Facebook page. Please don’t forget to “Like” it too. Show Niki some love! Thank YOU!! to the readers following The Adventures of Nurse Niki, the retweets of  @NurseNikiAdven (Hashtag #NurseNiki) and those who Like Nurse Niki’s Facebook Fan Page. The support is very much appreciated!

Nine Fictional Clinicians I’d Like to Meet (Yeah 9 Not 10. I’m Picky)

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In nursing, where years of working long hours can leave us feeling at times as if the tumor always wins, finding meaning is essential to happiness. People find meaning in different ways — some through spiritual practices such as meditation, others at a church, temple, or faith center.

photo by jparadisi

photo by jparadisi

When I can’t make sense of life by other means, I find meaning within inspirational themes of literature and art. Sometimes that meaning surfaces by way of humor. It’s been said that laughter is the best medicine. Maybe, at its finest, humor becomes a place where science, humanity, and art converge.

With humor in mind, last year, Scrubs magazine posted a list of “Top fictional nurses and docs YOU want to get trapped in an elevator with.” Getting stuck in an elevator would cause me the same escape anxiety that makes a wolf chew off its paw to escape a metal trap. However, the article did make me think about my favorite fictional nurses and doctors, and what I would say to them if I ever met them.

Here’s my list of clinicians and what I would say to each:

  • Dr. Frankenstein: In light of your previous laboratory experiments, what is your position on stem cell research?
  • Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, RN ( M*A*S*H, TV version ): Thank you for evolving from a rule- and sex-obsessed stereotype into a nurse comfortable with being compassionate, smart, and sexy. TV audiences would have been satisfied with just sexy.
  • Alex Price, RN ( An American Werewolf in London ): Exercise caution if you’re going to date your patients.
  • Phil Parma, RN ( Magnolia ): You are an unsung hero, the home health nurse. You take on the pathos of the dying and their families alone. Without judgment, and through unorthodox means, you found a way to fulfill your dying patient’s last wish.  And when no one is looking, you grieve.
  • Hana, RN ( The English Patient ): Make more time for self-care and fun, instead of dating guys who are as self-destructive as you.
  • Gaylord Focker, RN ( Meet The Fockers ): Dude, if you were my coworker, we’d be BFFs.
  • Dr. Hawkeye Pierce ( M*A*S*H ): What time is happy hour?
  • Catherine Barkley, RN ( A Farewell to Arms ): Have you ever felt, like I do, that your dialogue is written in a way that sounds as if Hemingway never spoke to an actual woman?
  • Jenny Fields ( The World According to Garp ): You are the fictional nurse I’d most like to meet, despite your shortcomings. Your fierce independence is both a blessing and a curse. Despite this, you are a true healer, demonstrating profound love of humanity in all its diversity, weaknesses, and beauty. You inspired me before I knew I would be a nurse. I pray to have a heart as open and generous as yours someday. I think of you often.

Which favorite fictional doctors or nurses would top your list?

JParadisiRN Blog: 2012 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 20,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 5 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Nurses, They’re Making Their Lists. Does Honesty Exclude Influence?

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The List by jparadisi 2012

The List by jparadisi 2012

As 2012 draws to a close, editors compile their annual lists for publication: The Top 10 Worse Movies of the Year, The Twenty Most Twittered Tweets, The Single Most Googled Christmas Gift, and so on. I enjoy lists, even making up a few of my own: Things to Do Today, lists of Goals For The Week, Month and Year.

December is a list-lover’s dream: Christmas gift lists, grocery lists of items necessary for making the best holiday meal ever, and of course, the requisite list of who’s been naughty or nice, which I will point out, are not necessarily mutually exclusive characteristics.

Unfortunately, some characteristics do appear mutually exclusive, keeping a group of people on one list, but off of another. I’m talking about The 2012 Gallup Poll results, which list nurses as the most honest and ethical of professionals for yet another year.

I don’t need Gallup to inform me of the public’s trust in nurses. Once, a retailer refused to require my driver’s license as proof of identity when I wrote him a check. “You’re a nurse,” was his explanation. “Nurses never write bad checks.”

While I don’t know if it’s true that nurses never write bad checks, one thing they never do is make it on Time magazine’s list of The 100 Most Influential People in The World. A couple of actors made the list. So did the son of Kim Jong Il. Of course, Stephen Colbert made the list; he’s on all the lists, except the Gallup’s list of the most honest and ethical professionals, which we nurses top. That may create a new list: the only list of 2012  excluding Stephen Colbert.

I digress from my point, however, which is this: why are there no nurses on Time’s The 100 Most Influential People in The World list? Not only of 2012, but ever? Florence Nightingale, who founded modern nursing by improving the plight of wounded soldiers, was not included on Time’s somewhat tongue in cheek list, The 100 Most Influential People of History.

I do not cast doubt on the ethics or honesty of those listed as Most Influential. In fact, many on the list, including Stephen Colbert, serve by bringing humanitarian needs to the forefront, and deserve recognition.

Perhaps we nurses should focus on raising leaders, imbued with ethics and honesty, towards influential goals. With health care provision in the limelight of national attention, there has never been a better time for nurses to aspire towards positions on both lists.