Shorter: Emergency Department Nurses. Bloggers. A bit jaded. Recovering cynics.
Longer: This blog favours a vision of nursing that values nurses and allows nurses to provide safe, competent and evidence-based care to their patients, and to practice at their full potential.
We view the health care system with a great deal of scepticism; we are especially suspicious of consultant-driven “reform”, managerial incompetence and boobery masquerading as being “change leadership”, all forms of human-resource-speak that devalues and demeans nurses, and general wastefulness.
But we am not willing to drink the Kool-Aid of nursing leaders (and managers) who think if we wish hard enough and have positive, nice thoughts, we’ll live in a happier world. That’s called magical thinking, and it’s commonly practised by children and psychiatric patients. Simple enough, eh?
Contributors:
TorontoEmerg, who is a Luddite at heart, and who also swears a lot.
JeanHill: who wears scarves inappropriate to actual weather and who also is secretly appalled by TorontoEmerg’s cursing.
Enquiries and Love to: TorontoEmergencyRN (at) gmail (dot) com
Those Emergency Blues 
#1 by Angry Nurse on Thursday 05 November 2009 - 0300
Hi There:
Loved your blog and thanks for dropping by mine. In response to your question born, raised and still live in Canada ans these days in cowtown.
#2 by Patti Newman on Thursday 12 May 2011 - 1103
Hi
I read the above blog post with interest. I’m doing some research on Canadian hospitals, wait times and ‘bed shortages’ especially in relation to patients deemed ‘ALC’. I’d like to get the perspective of people, like nurses, who are working on the front line. My email address is Patti.Newman@globalnews.com.
#3 by Suzanne Magee on Tuesday 24 November 2009 - 0755
Have to say, I think we’re likeminded when it comes to Nursing leadership and management! Love your blog. Just love it!
#4 by Arthur Czuma on Monday 11 January 2010 - 1335
I consult for a medical information database that’s looking to expand readership and use. We feel this resource would be a valuable asset to your readers, if you could help us out with a text link we would be more then willing to compensate you.
Let me know how we can make this work.
Best Regards,
Arthur Czuma
#5 by wilomis on Sunday 07 February 2010 - 0837
Did you see the subtle thank you I provided in #100? (Panel 2) Thank you for reading and the support.
#6 by torontoemerg on Sunday 07 February 2010 - 1040
No problem Will — I am hugely flattered by reference.
#7 by Stephanie Jewett, RN, MBA on Sunday 07 February 2010 - 1640
Your site is great! I’m just getting started on a new nursing website blog and I was wondering if we could exchange links. I’m so new to this, I just figured out how to work on my blogroll. My site addresses various topics for colleagues, patients, caregivers and the general public. I’m trying to share, through words, my 30+ years nursing experience. My name is Stephanie Jewett, RN, MBA from Iowa and I’ll leave my site for you to visit. THANKS!
http://www.nursingcomments.com/
#8 by midwest woman on Tuesday 09 February 2010 - 0850
just read your a”about me”and the last comment about magical thinking was hilarious and so true……codendency, baby, is the name of the game.
#9 by Barbara O' Brien on Monday 08 March 2010 - 1122
I just have a quick question for you but couldn’t find an email so had to resort to this. I am a progressive blogger and the owner of the mahablog. Please email me back at barbaraobrien@maacenter.org when you get a chance. Thanks.
Barbara
#10 by @rdjfraser on Friday 26 March 2010 - 1812
This is awesome. I just found your blog, and I’m happy to find some a local nurse that blogs. I didn’t know we had any. Amazing how the web works. Anyway, I’m looking forward to watching your posts!
#11 by @rdjfraser on Monday 19 April 2010 - 1446
Can you send me an email? I’d like to talk to you about ThinkNursing!
#12 by Jane on Tuesday 27 April 2010 - 1504
I love you.
#13 by RNnnnrGrl on Friday 29 April 2011 - 2308
Ok….you had me at “boobery.” Seriously, though, I subscribed after I saw hits coming back from your page to mine and came over to read your blog. I would LOVE for you to come and spread your love in my facility. The Kool-Aid has been flowing for years, and at this point it seems to flow from every orifice in administrative offices…. in all of the facilities. And I have worked in several. One point that everyone seems to forget is that is is akin to being in the 4th ring of Hell when working with all females….. and before my selective Tourettes kicks in, I will sign off for now. :0) Thanks for the slap.
#14 by hereticnurse on Monday 16 May 2011 - 2337
I loved your blog until I got to the part about nurse managers wanting everyone to drink the Kool-aid. That kind of thinking is a good part of the problem in nursing. We are all nurses, some of us work the bedside, some of us do nursing research, some of us teach and some of us manage. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a part of nursing and by segragating them as unrealist rainbow chasers you demean all nurses.
#15 by torontoemerg on Tuesday 17 May 2011 - 0612
Thanks for the feedback. Two points: self-criticism as a profession is not a bad thing, and neither is holding managers’ feet to the fire. Actually I wish more managers would “chase rainbows” in terms of gold-standard, evidence-based practice, professionalism, and empowerment. I do have an issue with managers (and others) who will act in ways that are detrimental to both individual nurses and the profession as a whole, and then dress it up as the greatest thing since Florence invented the cap.
All of which is to say I am relentlessly pro-nursing. Sometimes managers (and others) aren’t, and need to be called on it.
#16 by Jeanette on Sunday 05 June 2011 - 1504
Wow, I’m a nursing student ER nurse hopeful who just found your blog…did you say evidence-based care practiced with scepticism?! Well, you just got added to the RSS feed :)
#17 by Srivilasica on Tuesday 22 November 2011 - 0233
Great blog! I came here searching for poems and found a refreshing perspective on nursing. As an MS patient, I have come across so many nurses (some wonderful and some terrible). I like the ‘provide safe, competent and evidence-based care to their patients, and to practice at their full potential’ part immensely.
#18 by tinetio on Tuesday 07 February 2012 - 2012
I love your stuff. I am also an ER nurse and truly enjoy your writings.. Keep it up!
#19 by gregmercer601 on Monday 16 April 2012 - 1306
Thanks for your fine blog and for following mine even as I learn how to do it right, step by painful step. As for positive thinking, it surely gets oversold as a panacea, yet it also has solid proven merit. To the extent we feel able to make things better, we also tend to put in the effort that is needed to actually make it so. To the extent that we accept things as is, we ensure no improvement is likely. Attitude influences reality in this way, not magic but certainly influential and worth some effort. I argue for positive attitude not about how the world is – we’re given a world loaded with crap that needs fixing – but about our ability to find ways to improve it and to successfully implement them. Complaining without offering solutions makes a bad situation even worse, whereas offering problems and solutions is the main reason we no longer barely survive day to day cold and naked in caves, as did our ancestors.
#20 by torontoemerg on Tuesday 17 April 2012 - 1016
Thanks for your fine blog and for following mine even as I learn how to do it right, step by painful step.
Many thanks Greg. I actually agree with you. There’s a difference between magical thinking and evidence based practice, and healthy scepticism and a positive attitude are not IMHO incompatible.
#21 by chloewalker84 on Sunday 08 July 2012 - 1315
I couldn’t agree more TorontoEmerg. It seems like more and more decisions regarding the care I give, how I give it, when I give it , is being decided by HR people so far from the bedside they couldn’t tell an ass from an elbow. Yet I’m supposed to ‘champion the change’ as God’s gift to my practice, taking away the need for me to decide how to give care & become the literal beast of burdern with a vitals cart and a diaper.
I’m probably moving to the GTA sometime soon, and I hope there are more nurses like you out there to challenge the so-called reform that sees money taken from actual caregivers in exchange for pretty words and false promises on the backs of nurses.