Fox News doesn't want veterans to "settle" for nurses
Fox News update: Analyzing the story on APRNs and the proposed VA rule
Scary monsters and super creeps
Nurses and The Mindy Project
Mona Shattell co-authors strong New York Times op-ed on trucker health
July 22, 2016: Graduation Ceremony at Johns Hopkins!
Sandy Summers will be the speaker at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing's commencement ceremony. If you can't attend, you can watch her online here. Book Sandy to speak at your graduation today!
May 2016 rally at the U.S. Capitol for safe staffing legislation!
Sandy was a featured speaker at the Rally for National Nurse-to-Patient Ratios
Other recent events
Sandy just got back from speaking in Washington DC, Houston, New York, Iowa and Vancouver and speaks widely to a variety of international nursing groups. Book her today!
Don't hide your light under a bushel!
American Nurse Today runs Truth leaders' call to educate the public
Flying scalpels and the future of health care
Baltimore Sun publishes Truth leader's op-ed on nurse staffing ratios
Rally for National Nurse-to-Patient Ratios on May 12
Minority Nurse covers May 2016 rally, including Truth's participation
RN Advocate Lambasts Media Portrayal Of Nursing
Decorah News (Iowa) and Graduatenursingedu.org cover November 2015 speech at Luther College
Maximize nurse retention and reimbursement
Consult the Truth's leaders now to improve nursing care at your hospital! Ask your hospital managers to schedule a consultation today! Learn more about our program here.
Nursing Professors: Get a video-chat guest lecture from Sandy Summers for just $100
Nursing professors who assign Saving Lives to their students can Facetime with the Truth
Please help the Truth help nursing!
It has taken us many months to transition our website to its new mobile format. We hope you enjoy the new look! After this long transition, we will be working hard to catch up on different fronts, and we would really appreciate your help. Here are just a few ways you can help us improve global health through better understanding of nursing:
We rely on your help to move forward on our mission. Thank you!
Fox News doesn't want veterans to "settle" for nurses
June 1, 2016 -- Please join the 4,000 people who have signed our petition protesting a damaging Fox News story whose video says "Vets may have to settle for a visit with the nurse at the VA." Several press pieces have reported on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) May 25 notice of a proposed rule that would enable advanced practice nurses (APRNs) in the VA system to provide care to the full scope of their abilities without physician "supervision," in an effort to reduce wait times. Most of these pieces do not adequately represent the nursing perspective, but the most damaging we have seen is a June 1 Fox News report. The video, featuring correspondent Doug McKelway, includes statements that the rule change would "allow highly trained nurses to act as doctors, and even administer anesthesia without a doctor's supervision," which might mean that veterans would have to "settle" for seeing a nurse rather than a physician....more...
Fox News update: Analyzing the story on APRNs and the proposed VA rule
June 10, 2016 -- Today we finally reached Doug Rohrbeck, executive producer of the June 1 Fox News segment about the proposed Veterans Administration (VA) rule that would allow advanced practice nurses (APRNs) to practice without physician "supervision." We spoke for about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, we did not see much improvement in his understanding of APRNs, nursing in general, or the lack of balance in the network's June 1 piece--which relied heavily on the unsupported views of physicians that APRNs are unqualified to practice independently and included no meaningful response from nursing advocates. Mr. Rohrbeck insisted that his segment was "balanced" because it included a variety of people, as if "balance" could be achieved by having different people express the same views on an issue. But an item is not fair to nursing simply because different physicians, journalists, and politicians all express the same uninformed contempt for the profession. So we thought that we would try to explain and illustrate exactly why this piece was unbalanced. ...more... Join almost 4,000 people who have signed our petition to ask Fox News to show respect for APRNs! Please click here to sign. Thank you!
Scary monsters and super creeps
Nurses and The Mindy Project
May 2014 -- On The Mindy Project (Fox), which focuses on a New York City obstetrics practice, all the characters are odd and silly. But the physicians drive the sitcom's plots and get a certain respect based on their professional status, whereas the nurses tend to be bizarre, ignorant peasants who just provide incidental splashes of comic color. Most episodes in the second season, which ended this month, feature at least some idiocy from nurses Morgan, Tamra, and Beverly. Morgan's exploits include failing to recognize obvious signs that he is eating marijuana cupcakes at a music festival and, at another point, having to be told by one of the physicians that he can't be "promote[d] to doctor." ...more...
Mona Shattell co-authors strong New York Times op-ed on trucker health
March 9, 2016 -- Today the New York Times published "Long-Haul Sweatshops," an op-ed about the tough working conditions U.S. truckers face. In the piece, ethnographic researcher Anne Balay and nursing scholar Mona Shattell argue that current national policies focus on road safety, but not the safety of the truckers themselves. ...excerpts, read more... This piece presents a nursing scholar as an expert, forcefully and persuasively making a key public health argument in a prominent forum. And it does a good job of identifying Shattell, who is on the Truth About Nursing's advisory panel. The op-ed not only notes at the end that she is a "professor of nursing at Rush University," but also explains in the text that "Professor Shattell" is "a researcher and registered nurse who has studied the mental, physical and sexual health of truckers." (The piece also says that ethnographic researcher and Professor Balay is a former long-haul trucker herself.) Mentioning Shattell's PhD would have been even better. In any case, the op-ed is very helpful, and we thank Mona Shattell, Anne Balay, and the Times...more...
July 22, 2016: Graduation Ceremony at Johns Hopkins!
Sandy Summers will be the speaker at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing's commencement ceremony. If you can't attend, you can watch her online here. Book Sandy to speak at your graduation today!
May 2016 rally at the U.S. Capitol for safe staffing legislation!
Sandy was a featured speaker at the Rally for National Nurse-to-Patient Ratios
You can see the rally videos online here: Video #1, Video #2, Video #3, Video #4, Video #5, and Video #6.
Other recent events
Sandy just got back from speaking in Washington DC, Houston, New York, Iowa and Vancouver and speaks widely to a variety of international nursing groups. Book her today!
Publications:
Don't hide your light under a bushel!
American Nurse Today runs Truth leaders' call to educate the public
March 2016 - This month American Nurse Today, the official journal of the American Nurses Association, published a substantial article by Truth About Nursing executive director Sandy Summers and senior advisor Harry Summers titled "Let's take the lead in educating the public about nursing" (pp. 36-37, 58). The piece discussed a variety of practical ways we can strengthen nursing by doing more to tell society what nurses really do. We thank American Nurse Today!
Flying scalpels and the future of health care
Baltimore Sun publishes Truth leader's op-ed on nurse staffing ratios
May 11, 2016 - Today the Baltimore Sun published a Nurses Day op-ed by Truth executive director Sandy Summers advocating for federal legislation mandating minimum nurse staffing ratios. The op-ed explained some of the roots of the understaffing that is endemic in U.S. hospitals, including an enduring lack of real social and media respect for the profession. And the piece urged readers to attend the Rally for National Nurse-to-Patient Ratios held on May 12 at the U.S. Capitol in which hundreds of nurses called for federal legislation mandating safe staffing ratios. We thank the Sun for running this op-ed. See the op-ed here.
Rally for National Nurse-to-Patient Ratios on May 12
Minority Nurse covers May 2016 rally, including Truth's participation
May 6, 2016 - Today Minority Nurse posted a long piece by Julia Quinn-Szcesuil about the then-upcoming Nurses Day rally for nurse-to-patient ratios at the U.S. Capitol. The piece featured extensive commentary from Show Me Your Stethoscope's national director Jalil Johnson and also mentioned the scheduled appearance of Truth leader Sandy Summers.
RN Advocate Lambasts Media Portrayal of Nursing
Decorah News (Iowa) and Graduatenursingedu.org cover November 2015 speech at Luther College
November 2015 - The Decorah News (Iowa) published a substantial item about Truth leader Sandy Summers' then-upcoming speaking engagement at Luther College, "Nationally known nursing advocate Summers to present lecture at Luther," giving some background about the Truth and a preview of the lecture. GraduatenursingEDU.org also posted a preview of the lecture with more detail about Summers's background, as well as the provocative headline, "RN Advocate Lambasts Media Portrayal of Nursing."
Maximize nurse retention and reimbursement
Consult the Truth's leaders now to improve nursing care at your hospital! Ask your hospital managers to schedule a consultation as a nurses' week gift to you and your colleagues
Hospital leaders: Would you like to halt nurse turnover? Maximize reimbursements? We can help you! Leaders of The Truth About Nursing have been the forefront of the effort to transform nursing care since 2001. The Truth About Nursing has long worked to define nursing excellence for the public and to improve understanding of the profession. Now our leaders provide hospitals with in-depth, individualized analysis of the hidden factors that can affect nurse turnover, health care errors, readmission rates, and patient satisfaction levels. Learn more about our program here.
Nursing Professors: Get a video-chat guest lecture from Sandy Summers for just $100
Nursing professors who assign Saving Lives to their students can Facetime with the Truth
For a limited time, if you teach at a school of nursing and assign the purchase of Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nursing Puts Us All at Risk by each student for required reading for your class, Sandy Summers would be happy do an online presentation / seminar / engagement with your students for only a $100 donation to the Truth About Nursing. Please conact Sandy at ssummers@truthaboutnursing.org to discuss. Thank you! Learn more about our curriculum ideas for professors here.
Please help the Truth help nursing!
It has taken us many months to transition our website to its new mobile format. We hope you enjoy the new look! After this long transition, we will be working hard to catch up on different fronts, and we would really appreciate your help. Here are just a few ways you can help us improve global health through better understanding of nursing:
We rely on your help to move forward on our mission. Thank you!
THE TRUTH ABOUT NURSING challenges stereotypes and educates the world about the value of nursing. Better understanding that nurses are autonomous, college-educated science professionals will strengthen nursing care, education and research, allowing nurses to save more lives.
Get a copy of Saving Lives with every $30 donation!
Donate $30 to the Truth now, and we will send you a copy of our leaders' newly released book Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nursing Puts Us All at Risk. Both editions have won American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards and Saving Lives has also won an award from the international nursing honor society, Sigma Theta Tau. The book was written for nurses, the media, and members of the public around the world. Many nursing professors use it as a text to discuss nursing in society. The authors donate all royalties to the Truth About Nursing. Order today--paperback or digital--and we will send a copy out to you!