All About Nursing Show 8

You're listening to the BBM Global Network with 25 years in broadcast audio and video production. Our passionate team creates content and marketing for the world of Internet Talk Radio. If you've got a passion, come join us at BBMGlobalNetwork.com. The BBM Global Network, your voice is now heard.

Welcome to All About Nursing with your host Dr. Joyce Bachelor, executive nurse advisor Dr. Vacherle, who will present the significant role nurses play in providing healthcare in the multitude of healthcare settings. Listen to some of today's key nurses who work in practice in academia settings and talk about the challenges they face in today's modern medical world.

So please welcome the host of All About Nursing, Dr. Joyce Bachelor. Good evening. I'm your host Dr.

Joyce Bachelor on All About Nursing and rely on the BBM Global Network and tuning radio. On prior radio shows, we've been hearing about the various roles nurses play and the fact that they work in so many different settings. Prior guests have shared highlights of their careers that include the kind of advanced degrees, certifications and experiences needed because nursing really has a lot of very different specialties. There are over three and a half million nurses in the US today and according to the Gallup poll, nurses have been ranked as the most trusted professional for at least the last six years.

This is something nurses are very proud of since we do care for our patients and families at times when they're most vulnerable. So why are nurses always seen as being one of the most influential professionals when it comes to healthcare issues that are highlighted in the media? Well, this evening I have a guest who's going to help explore this issue who's Dr. Carol Myers.

So thank you so much for being agreeing to be on the show, Dr. Myers. I'm going to just do a little introduction to get us started. So Dr.

Myers is an associate professor in the College of Nursing and Department of Public Health at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She's a leader in the use of policy, advocacy and media to promote population health, including healthcare access, rural health, Medicaid and APRN, full practice of health. For 40 years now, she's been engaged in non-traditional professional initiatives and policy to improve access to high quality and cost-effective healthcare. Dr.

Myers is a creator and host of Health Connections, a radio show on the Knoxville and PR affiliate. Dr. Myers and her co-host were recently awarded a first place 2018 Golden Press Award for Radio Documentary Public Affairs Programming. Dr.

Myers blogs, she's an avid tweeter and author of Op-Eds and other commentary. She conducts research that centers on policy making and health services with an emphasis on access to care, 10-care, public health programs and advanced practice registered nurses. Dr. Myers is also a senior fellow at the Center of Health Policy and Media Engagement at George Washington University and a Faculty Policy Fellow with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

We're very fortunate to have you on our show this evening. So, Carol, let's begin with you. Just tell us a little about the role that you currently are here in. Well, thank you, Al Joyce, for that wonderful introduction.

The role I'm currently in is a typical academic position. I have responsibilities related to doing research, teaching and doing community service. And you outlined many of those things that I do in your introduction. So, thank you for that.

I think probably what would be helpful is to look at the many different things I've been able to do as a nurse and how they inform what I do now. I previously was an emergency room nurse. I was the owner operator of a Rural Primary Care Clinic in Tennessee and at the time, it was the only fully-nursed-owned clinic in the state. I worked in the business sector for 15 years as a consultant for Managed Care with Alcoa, which was a Fortune 50 company, was a senior account executive with EDS in Texas and then an owner and managing principal of a benefits consulting company.

So, I've been able to do a lot of different things with my nursing degree. But through all of these iterations, Joyce, what's been consistent is a focus on high quality cost-effective healthcare and health promotion. So, I've fulfilled my role with that goal in mind as a researcher, as a business consultant and as a primary care provider. And I've worked in the private sector as well as the public sector.

Through all of this, one of the things that's been consistent is an interest in affinity and attraction and involvement with policymaking and advocacy. I guess I'd like that on my Tunes Stone. Tunes Stone, she was an effective advocate. So, I hope that answers your question.

That is great. And it's very much a kind of a different pathway than many nurses would have taken. And it sounds like it's been very effective and very exciting. And I was just curious, what led you to be doing the kind of work that you're now involved in?

Well, a lot of past led me to the point where I'm at currently. But I would cite having a sabbatical, a faculty sabbatical a year ago is probably the most significant. I originally proposed a faculty sabbatical to write a textbook. And almost immediately I went, yuck.

I don't want to do that. I don't know how much value that will have. The lead time, the effort, how can I have more impact quickly? And I went back and revised the terms of my sabbatical to say, I'll focus on how I can use media to advance my scholarship, to advance my teaching, and to advance my professional service.

And everything aligned perfectly where I was offered many opportunities that show to me how powerful using media was in advancing particularly my advocacy work, which directly relates to my work and policy. And also, Ian disseminating my research and other findings. So it was just like a perfect match. And having that time off for my faculty role was really helpful to allow me to focus and to really invest myself in saying, I'm going to make a difference here in what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.

So did you seek out some kind of special training or mentors to help you to do what you've just described? Because it certainly is a different pathway. Yes, I did. I was very fortunate.

And I wish I could say that I had a purposeful plan to seek these people out. They were put in my path. And one of the most significant things that happened was aligning with Dr. Diana Mason and Barbara Glickstein, who were the movers and shakers behind the Center for Health Media in policy that had just moved to George Washington University.

And I was very fortunate to be selected as a senior fellow. And ever since that selection, I have been very well supported in networking and in resources and helping to get exposure and critique of my work and brainstorming it opened up doors that I never even knew was there. So I was very fortunate in that regard. And it's interesting once you declare a new direction how you'll find other folks that are moving in that area.

So yes, I've been very fortunate and I would name primarily Diana Mason and Barbara Glickstein at this juncture. I also would name, I had a relationship, but it was pretty nascent with our local NPR station. But because of a confluence of different events, I was able to go in and propose a much more robust relationship with them. And they have been instrumental in my co-host at the radio station, as well as others in helping me understand the things that I wanted to do as I learned more and more about how I could do for media.

One of the things that other guests on the show have talked about is just how impactful the mentors and the connections have been, especially being involved in professional organizations and how you start to really meet a lot of different people that can help you along that road that you may find yourself on. And so how did you get connected with the Diana Mason initially? Were you part of the American Academy of Nursing or was this just something that someone told you about? Just curious?

No, it was serendipity entirely. I had for many years, going to a conference in San Diego and I ran into Diana Veyer. Well, this is all about nursing. Yes, this is all about nursing and I'm Dr.

Joyce Bachelor. We're live on the BBM Global Network in tuning radio. It's time to take a short break. Stay tuned.

Dr. Rob Moyer is the director of the Ocean River Institute and he is passionate about saving the ocean by helping dolphins suffering from nitrogen pollution. Nitrogen is a dangerous pollutant, affecting our oceans, altering ocean ecosystems and contributing to global warming. The Ocean River Institute provides opportunities to make a difference and encourages people to go the distance for savvy stewardship of a greater and bluer planet Earth.

Partner with organizations from Massachusetts to Florida, Alaska to the Caribbean, the Ocean River Institute's mission is to foster involvement in conservation and environmental monitoring by facilitating grassroots efforts at local and regional levels. Hello, I'm Rob Moyer of the Ocean River Institute. Please visit our website at oceanriver.org. Sign up for free alerts.

You may call us at 617-661-6647. Our email address is info at Ocean River. They come in form to then act with us. Thank you.

America is out of control. Today's capitalism and the approach to money is in fact the more widespread pattern of excessive behavior. In his book, The Culture of Excess, How America Lost Self-Control and Why We Need to Redefine Success. Clinical psychologist Dr.

Jay Slosar portrays in America where excess fuels would drive to succeed. Dr. Slosar examines the cultural factors that lead to excess ranging from obesity to fraud to pervasive budget deficits. His book examines the powerful economic and social factors and their impact on our psychological well-being.

Dr. Slosar explores the psychological impact of increasing narcissism, perfectionism, self-destruction and our identity confusion. He offers recommendations for helping generation me become generation we. Those who resist Slosar's message will want to avoid his discussion of regulation and his recent message that at this point, democracy must be more important than today's capitalism.

Get his book now online or by visiting thecultureofexcess.com. Welcome back everyone. You're listening to all about nursing live from the BBM Global Network and tuning radio. I'm Dr.

Joyce Batch, the host of the show. Before the break, Dr. Myers had begun to tell us how she was able to get connected to some pretty impressive mentors that assisted her in the pathway of finding more ways to really learn about how to become a pro and understanding how to use the media to help us really advance her work. Maybe just share a little bit more about how that occurred for you.

Yes, thank you. I was talking about serendipity. I think everyone you know and everywhere you go is an opportunity. It's a potential connection and I had the opportunity to sit with Diane Mason early in my sabbatical at a policy conference for doctoral educators.

And I began to, she began to plant some seeds, but I didn't yet know what was going to grow. At that same conference, there was another nurse researcher who said to me, wow, you're a natural act communicating. You ought to join us at George Washington University. And that lady and I spoke a little bit and I just tucked that away and really didn't ever think I would retrieve that information.

And four weeks later, I was at the Academy Health Policy Conference and had a chance meeting with Barbara Glickstein and some of the other principals from the center at GW. And then the ball got rolling. So I was very lucky. And one of the things that I was fortunate to learn early in my career is you can't plan for everything that's going to happen in your career.

And some of the best things are not things you plan for, but you must always be ready. So that played out well for me, Joyce. That's great. So what I'd like to kind of switch to now is that you recently published an article that's titled, Nurses Play Vital Roles in Healthcare.

Why are they invisible in the media? And there was a backstory that kind of led to all of this. So I was just curious if you could tell us a little bit more about the Woodhall study and then I'll have that's linked to the article that you've published. Great.

Well, the first Woodhall study was the brainchild of a woman named Nancy Woodhall. And she was one of the founding editors of USA Today. During treatment for Long Kingdom, Miss Woodhall noted the contradiction between the excellent nursing care she received, highly professional, highly caring, and how little nurses were represented in the media, which is where her expertise lied. Consequently, a working group of nearly 20 researchers analyzed health news articles published in leading print newspapers, weeklies, and trade publications of the day for a month in September of 1997.

The results of that study confirmed what Woodhall suspected. Nurses were largely absent in the media for coverage on health issues. So we can look at the 1997 results. And what I did was compare those results with a study that was replicated 20 years later, the Woodhall 2 study.

So what they found initially, Joyce, was that news articles published in the leading print papers, weeklies, and trade publications, that only 4% of the quotes in newspapers and 1% in the weeklies in industry publications were attributable to nurses. Nurses are by far the largest number of healthcare professionals and just 4%. Almost all photographs that accompanied news articles did not depict nurses or if they did, they did not identify them. And in all the articles they analyzed, only about 14% even mentioned nurses.

So we have these pitiful showing 4% of the quotes, rarely identified or depicted in pictures and only mentioned about 14% of the time. So let's fast forward. The study was replicated in September of 2017, 20 years later, and it hadn't gotten better. As a matter of fact, in some areas, it got worse.

This time, the quotes were attributed to nurses just about 2% of the time. Nurses were identified in 4% of the images, a marginal improvement, and they were mentioned in 13% of the articles, compares almost similarly with the 14% from the prior studies. Nurses were wholly absent in many stories in the sample, despite how important nursing was to the topic of those stories. And when they looked further, drilled down a little bit, nurses were most invisible in stories about policy, the business of healthcare, and research.

These, the second findings were pretty dismal. Also, one of the things that was noticed, Joyce, with the results of the second White House study, were the major gender differences. What we were seeing here mirrors a lot of what we see in general society. Men were quoted almost twice as often in health news stories, sampled compared to the women, it was 65% to 34%, and the images of men outnumber those of women, 72 to 28%.

So women severely underrepresented. The other thing that was novel about the second White House study was they decided to go to journalists and say, so what's up with this? And what they found was distressing. The journalists confirmed that they in their newsrooms infrequently reach out to women, to nurses, or people in general who are not in positions of authority in healthcare.

There's a real pecking order who's at the top. Journalists went so far as to say that they had to defend their decision when they elected to use a nurse as a source. So they received internal resistance about that. And I thought one of the things that was most concerning was the journalists said, quite honestly, we really don't know what nurses do.

So here we are, the most numerous healthcare professionals, pretty visible, I think, in general society, and yet invisible in the news in journalists who really control a lot that say, we don't even really know what they do. So to say that we were distressed with the initial findings and the follow-up findings is an understatement. I'm listening to your report, thinking to myself, my gosh, there are over three and a half million nurses. And to be that underrepresented is just very concerning.

So I'd like to share more about that. But right now we're coming to your live from the BVM Global Network in tuning radio for the All About Nursing. And I'm Dr. Joyce Bachelor.

We're going to continue this conversation. We come back. Introducing BetterHomingGarden.com. That's www.betterhominggarden.com with just a letter N in BetterHoming Garden.

BetterHomingGarden.com offers you the highest quality products on the market that are environmentally safe and effective and to make them available to you at the lowest possible prices. BetterHomingGarden.com understands that kind of creativity and do-it-yourself attitude. Thus we developed our website BetterHomingGarden.com BetterHomingGarden.com offers you the following products right online, Beth, Betty, Collectibles, Crafts, Sewing & Hobby, Food & Beverage, Furniture, Home Decor, Kitchen & Dining, Lamps & Lighting, Large Appliances, Musical Instruments, Outdoor Cooking, Patty Whiting, Spencelifies, Plant & Garden, Rug & Floor Covering, Small Appliances, Travel & Lung Engines, So much more. BetterHoming Garden is an online retailer offering a wide variety of high quality brand-name merchandise at discount prices.

Our service is personal and we aim to please visit us at www.betterhomeengarden.com. Make your home your own. With the fact that the journalists sometimes were pushed back on if they wanted a nurse to be involved, that they weren't being seen as the person of authority. Is that happening like in, for example, hospitals where CEOs or other senior executives are not the ones giving those opportunities to like their chief nursing officers or their chief, you know, other kinds of nursing executives or their researchers?

Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, Ashley Joyce, it's on both ends. In the newsroom, the journalists would get pushed back from their editors about wanting to use a nurse as a source, or if they had used a nurse as a source. But on the other end, if they were to call, let's say a healthcare system and ask to identify someone they could speak to about a story, most commonly the leadership of those healthcare and other systems are going to identify a top executive who very often is male.

Disproportionately, chief nursing officers are excluded. So what we're seeing is on both ends of the continuum that there is a reticence to consider nurses as attractive stories, as attractive sources for stories or as the subject of the story. So it perpetuates what we see in the general media. It's not just your main to nursing, it's more general.

It's the under representation of women. Well, as you know, nursing is certainly predominantly a female profession, and we certainly have had some increases with the number of men coming into the profession. But do you think that that's really a big part of why nurses are not being sought out by media? Well, I think it's one reason, rarely on something this complicated, particularly when it's a socially situated problem.

Is there one source of the problem? But certainly I think gender bias and the lack of equality within our society is one factor. I think another factor has to do within the healthcare systems and how they look at the work that's done within the system and value the work and how they view nurses. But I would have to say that also nurses own some of it, Joyce, a small part of it, and there's things that nurses can do to begin to work on this problem.

So could you go on and share some ideas of what you think nurses could be doing to help change this? Yes, I could talk about several things. First off, I talked today, I had an interview with an AP reporter as a result of the article that you mentioned, and he wanted me to give him a list of sources on certain subjects. And I had already asked around about that, and we don't have that.

We need to get organized and we need to better promote the nurses that are already engaged in media. We have a lot of good what I call media mavens, not enough, but we do have some highly visible people. So we need to get organized, perhaps one of our nursing associations need to do that. But nurses themselves need to be ready to work in media.

One of the things I've long said, Joyce, is it's real easy to say I care when I lay hands directly on a patient and care for them. But someone like me who doesn't do that, who works in the policy arena, who works with advocacy, my caring is through advocacy. My caring is making system changes that will allow us to care for people easier. So nursing has to embrace this idea that it's not just the laying of hands, it's not just doing procedures, it's not just being present at the bedside, that is important, it's all these other things.

And then I think because so many nurses are women, they don't feel comfortable claiming their expertise. I mean, obviously, in today's complex healthcare delivery system, a nurse has to be very expert with all of the things they deal with. And yet many nurses, to use the southern expression, pour them out what they do. They don't take credit for their caring, for their scientific knowledge, for the hard work that they do.

And they don't equate what they do as relevant to the larger population. So nurses have to change that. But most of us weren't educated that way. You're absolutely correct because I hear nurses sometimes say to me, well, I'm just a nurse.

And I just always look at them and think, and that is one of the phrases that drives me crazy, to be honest. It's like, you know, sometimes you're, like you said, they're not able to articulate that. In fact, they save lives and they're able to help people in very difficult situations and very humble. I think that's the other piece that I find is, well, that's part of my job.

I do every day instead of being able to articulate the difference that it really made in people's lives and how special it is to be able to do that when you've got so many different kinds of people that you work with and you can individualize it based on lots of different cultures, age groups, et cetera. So I'm wondering, is there's something we should be doing differently starting in the nursing schools to start having nurses get more comfortable in media? Yes, actually, I'm really glad that you asked that. For two reasons is what health study is spurring on several other questions, research questions and research studies.

And one of the things we want to know is within graduate schools, how in bed it is media in the curriculum, if at all. So there's some thought about surveying schools of nursing. And just like we develop competencies for taking care of mothers and babies, we think there should be some basic competencies around media. So we want to look at that more.

We need to gather the data to be able to put together a good plan. I will tell you, I work out in the community a lot. I'm a community advocate. And I can take folks that are not highly skilled professionals like nursing and put them through media training and they can do a really good job.

I think we need to do that with nurses. And I always encourage nurses to, you know, what is your brand? What is special about what you do? Your present at birth, your present at death, you help to ease suffering, you listen, you cope for people.

So I ask nurses these four questions. Well, what happens because of you? Start to think about that and then you can talk about what you do. What makes me different?

What do I want to do? And what makes me an expert? Well, we are coming to you live from BBM Global Network and TuneIn Radio. This is all about nursing show and I'm Dr.

Joyce Batchelor and we'll continue this conversation when we come back. listening to all about nursing live from the BBM Global Network and TuneIn Radio. I'm Dr. Joyce Batchelor, the host of the show.

Prior to the break, Dr. Myers was starting to tell us some of the questions that she asks nurses as a way for them to begin to think about the kind of brand that they're trying to create for themselves. So maybe you can start back on that discussion again. Sure.

I encourage nurses to reflect on what happens because of me. You know, someone has the information they need to approach a procedure with more calm or less stress. What's my differentiation? What is special about what I do?

I'm highly skilled at, you know, certain things or I'm known to be very astute about people's feelings. What do I want to do? What is it if I said today I have a magic wand as a nurse and I want to make something better? What is that thing?

And then I ask nurses, what makes me an expert? Is it your years of experience, your schooling, your special insight? Now, women and nurses have trouble owning the word expert, but I just say get over it. Really, if we want to do the best for our patients, this isn't about nurses, it's about doing the best for the people, the individuals and populations we care for, then how do we do it best?

How do we produce the changes and improvements that are going to help people and populations the most? I think that's great. And I agree with you that when you tell people that you want to know what the differentiates them as an expert, they get, again, very humble and not wanting to like stick out or stand out. And I like your approach is to like just get over that because I think we have to get comfortable being able to articulate the difference that we do making people's lives.

So I was curious if you could tell us a little bit about why is it that immediate presence is so important for nursing? Well, media today's currency, Joyce. I think we start with the deficit that leaders, elected leaders and other leaders are not getting the ideas and information they need to make the best decisions. And one of the places that a lot of the communication goes on is in the media.

Most conversations in the public space, you know, they, you know, authoritative discussions on TV at a conference or informal discussions on social media are basically echo changes. They provide the same narrow range of voices over and over again. Let me share some statistics with you. 85% of the folks featuring the media are white males.

97% of the Wall Street Journal op-eds were written by white men. We need to change that. Nothing wrong with the white men using their voice, but we need to get the other voices that are better representative of our society also heard. So media is so incredibly important because it sways opinions and ideas and it helps to get information to stakeholders.

It helps people be included in the important conversations that we need to have. So if you know how to use media strategically, you have a power that you don't have otherwise. Digital media where I operate is essential if you want to be a leader in advanced policy in today's environment. There's a reason why Wall Street is a candidate in office holders and things have Twitter accounts.

Direct communications, digital media, interviews is a way to engage the public who oftentimes is left out and get them involved in supporting the goals of nursing, which I also think ultimately supports nursing. So nurses can use media to amp up their power. That's the answer to your question. It's interesting you say that because in your introduction when I was describing what you do and talking about the work around care coordination and access to care and looking at the role of advanced practice nurses, I think that the consumers in general do not understand how much care is given as a result of advanced practices, particularly in rural areas and underserved areas.

And I know I meet nurse practitioners that are in rural areas here in Texas and there are many times the hospital is they are the only caregiver in a very large area and the access to care is really very much done through them. Yet we do still struggle with the issues around having people understand what schooling is like and the expertise and what the scope of practice could really mean if in fact we could address that and really have a full scope of practice approved by our legislative arenas. So I find that very interesting that you share that and I was just curious too when you were talking, you know, are there things that we could start to do today to try to increase the ability of even like starting with our professional nursing organizations to get that more skilled in some of the areas that you've just been describing? Yes, absolutely.

We're already seeing an uptick in responses from nursing organizations, nursing associations and others for what keeps us the basics. Get us started. We want to make a difference. We want to change the Woodhall study.

In 20 years, we want the results to be very different. So I generally approach any group and whether they're nurses or other healthcare professionals or non-healthcare professionals with the basic tool is putting together messages. You need to know the messaging basics. You know, it's a foundation of whatever you do, whether you're on Twitter, whether you're using Facebook, you're getting a presentation, you're writing a letter to the editor, you're writing an op-ed, you need to have your basic messages.

And we always tell people to try to make three points. So we can train anybody, we train high school children in how to use media. And increasingly, I'm encouraging advocates and leaders to tap into the power of stories. There's so much research on how stories married with the evidence or data about whatever problem we're addressing create a very powerful synergistic effect.

So we begin to sensitize people to the power of stories. And I think nurses have a leg up there because we're so involved in the story of life with our patients. We see the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we can bring to life the problems that our country's struggling with, the uninsured teenage pregnancy, whatever the social ill that you want to name.

So when I go out and do basic training, it's help people to learn about messaging, help them to, you know, claim their expertise first and foremost, and then teach them how they can use stories to advance their cause. Then we talk about, so what media works for you? Are you someone like me who thrives on Twitter, where someone else hates it? Are you someone that wants to get out on the speaking bureau?

Do you write letters to the editor? What's your secret power? Usually I tell folks, find the first one and then you can compliment it with others. So in more advanced training, we'll talk about how to enter the Twitter world, how to write an op-ed.

Oh, you have an opportunity to do a radio or TV interview. How do you succeed at doing that? So it's basic training, basic training. Okay, so this is all about nursing and I'm your host, Dr.

Joyce Bachelor. We're live on the BBM Global Network and tuning radio and it's time to take a short break. For over 50 years, Evelyn Stupula has been a loving advocate for people with disabilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania. President and founder of Big Heart Bridges, her organization actively campaigns for legislation and support of civil liberties that meet the needs of disabled individuals with housing, transportation and employment.

Ms. Stupula has joined forces with a variety of esteemed organizations that advocate for the disabled. She serves on the board of the United Cerebral Palsy of Pittsburgh and the Governance Cabinet and Advisory Committee for people with disabilities and she is a consultant for the Pennsylvania Governors Conference for Women. Her many efforts have led to the implementation of a transportation program for the disabled with the Access Power Transit System of Allegheny County.

Evelyn Stupula strives daily to serve the interests of the disabled to protect their freedoms and enable them to live normal public lifestyles. To learn more please go for 1-2-4-9-1-2-6-0-5 or email Evelyn at ers9645 at Verizon.net. Attorney Renee Marie Smith is changing away. We sell real estate.

She wrote a series of books called My Short Sale Guru Guides for all real estate practitioners. Whether you're a homeowner wanting to understand the process, an agent who has been handling short sales for years or an industry analyst wanting to know how short sales impact your business, Renee uses her vast real estate experience to take a comprehensive look at the recent market phenomenon while relaying it in an easy to understand format. Through her company, Smith Title Services, Renee has counseled thousands of short sale participants and processed in excess of a thousand short sales. Her knowledge is transformational for real estate professionals and laymen alike and her live presentations provide people the opportunity to ask specific questions about their issues.

Buy her books and schedule her to speak at your next event. Visit www.smithtitleservices.com or call 305-705-3428 or email her at Renee at SmithTitleservices.com. Isn't it time to sell your property today? Learn the My Short Sale Guru way.

Welcome back everyone. You're listening to All About Nursing, Live from the BBN Global Network and TuneIn Radio. I'm Dr. Joyce Batchler, the host of this show.

Prior to the break, we were talking a little bit about what nurses need to do in order to have a greater presence in the media. And I was just curious if we could share a little bit about what you think the health care organizations and journalists also should be doing to try to change the fact that nurses seem to be missing in the media. Well, thanks for that question. I think the answer is somewhat similar for news organizations and health care organizations.

But let me start with news organizations. They need to cultivate and utilize news sources. Let's quit wearing out the echo chamber, white male folks, and look at diversifying our sources. In health care, we have this adage that the nurses should look like the people we're taking care of, that we should be more reflective of society in general.

I think that applies to journalists also, that we need to recognize the growing diversity of our country. So media consumers are diverse and they need diverse sources. And we must move beyond, as I've said, the current white male echo chamber. There's a little thing that really bothers me because it's emblematic of the power structure.

The AT style menu, which tells journalists how they write their things that are published, says the title doctor can only be used by a physician. Can't be used by a PhD scientist, can't be used by a PhD or DNP prepared nurse. That is absurd. That title was given to academics long before physicians were even on the landscape.

So things like that, these institutional barriers need to change. Well, what about health care organizations? Well, the advice choice is similar. Health care organizations need to identify, empower, and support a broader complement of organizational context.

Why isn't the chief nursing officer, the first person they recommend when they're asked for a source of story? It should be. Even more importantly, why isn't it the nurse at the bedside? Why isn't it the person who's taking care of people?

The complexity of the needs and interest of health care consumers cannot be captured without giving voice to nurses and other non-physician, non-male providers of the health care delivery team. I do want to make a point of that. What we're struggling with is nurses identified by the Woodhouse study is true for many other health care professionals. We're coming in this together.

So I think we need to look across the different sectors and how we can make media more representative of the people that it serves. And that's a great point, especially since we're talking so much now about accountable care organizations and care coordination. And it really is the team that needs to come together and be able to integrate and do the things that are the best for the patient at that time. And many times it's not the physician that's needed.

It might be the social worker, and it might be the physical therapist or the pharmacist. So I really appreciate you bringing that up. So what expertise about nursing is just so special? Well, I think there's a lot that's really special about nurses.

I think that nurses right now are essential to solving our problem of access to care, particularly in the rural areas and with vulnerable populations. I think we're seeing a major, major upheaval in primary care. And I think the future that nurse practitioners and other advanced trained nurses will be providing the majority of primary care. So that's a big news story.

They're going to help to increase access. We're looking at nurses are the leaders oftentimes in telehealth and in informatics, the college where I work, we have nurses developing wearable sensors, environmental sensors, so that older folks or premature infants can be in the home environment and still be monitored without having to be in an intensive care facility. We have a lot of technology development besides that going on. Nurses are filling in spaces in genomics, which we know is a very fertile frontier area in healthcare.

Nurses have insights that has been proven, proven instrumental in reducing medical errors, which is a major problem in our country, in improving patient safety. I think if you went in and did a diagram, who has had the most impact that it would be nurses when it comes to medical errors and patient safety? Nurses have long, long been proponents of wellness and expanded preventative care. Our public health nurses have a wonderful legacy and they have a story that needs to be told.

Nurses are engaged in research more and more very significant, applicable research is being done by nurses or nurses as parts of teams. The thing that nurses bring to research is a sensibility about so what, how does this improve health or healthcare? And that's so important. We cannot be using resources just to do research for research sake.

It has to be research that improves health and healthcare. So I think if we're going to see a transformation of the delivery of healthcare, which I think is very needed, that nurses have to be central. I'm not saying so long. Central, they need to be integral.

Members of the team, they need to be respected, they need to lead. So that's some of the things that nurses do. As you were talking, I was thinking about the induction ceremony for the American Academy of Nursing. And I've always wished that somebody from CMS, the person in charge of the American Hospital Association and other key executives would attend when the kinds of research that the nurses and the kinds of differences nurses from a variety of settings are making in healthcare are amazing.

And I always sit there and think we are talking to ourselves. And it's amazing. We all are stunned and impressed by what people are doing. But trying to get that message out much further is really critical because I think that we're going to continue to have us, you know, not having the visibility is really hurtful.

And I do think nurses have a lot of answers. So I really appreciate your thoughts on that. Do you have any other examples that you'd like to share where you know that nurses have just really made a difference, something like in the rural areas, for example, you mentioned telehealth. Oh, yeah, nurses are very involved.

I know that at my school of nursing, we have telehealth for in rural areas for mental health services, because we have so many folks in the rural areas that have behavioral substance abuse or mental health problems. They don't have transportation. They don't have means in telehealth actually works very well with behavioral health services. Let me tell you another story that needs to be told.

Actually, I talked to a reporter today, I think who's going to do this story. School nursing is a subset of public health nursing. It's very, very, very important, but very under recognized. We have a I can't believe this.

Oh, no, this is all about nursing and I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor. We're alive on the BBM Global Network, continuing radio. We'll continue this conversation when we come back.

Do you battle with weight loss? There is a solution. Founder of Weight No Mark Consulting, Deborah Simons can help you lose weight safely and effectively through weight loss surgery. I know I had the surgery two years ago and I am 135 pounds lighter and medication free.

This full service weight loss center caters to your every knee as you navigate to a healthy weight following surgery. Servicing all of Canada, Weight No Mark Consulting takes pride in its compassionate care and guides you through each step before and after surgery. Starting with informational meetings, Weight No Mark Consulting educates each potential client before they decide to have surgery on the health risks of obesity and the various weight loss surgeries available. After surgery, Weight No Mark Consulting provides a solid support system with ongoing meetings to ensure continued success.

Deborah Simons and Weight No Mark Consulting are committed to promoting your health and wellness through maintaining a healthy weight for life. Wiggy Wags brings Harmony back into your home for male dogs and their owners. Inventor and entrepreneur Linda Jangula has created the disposable doggy diaper wraps made with the male dog in mind. The built-in Wiggy ability prevents rashing and other potential health issues for your dog.

Each wrap comes in four sizes and has dual reattachable magic tabs for easy adjustments. And each size has a seven-inch logo strip for adjustability. So they are comfortable and easy to use. No more fuss, just leave them as to us.

Whether you're in or out, your dog will be free to run about. Stop cleaning and start enjoying your home and you can even leave your dog alone. To order your Wiggy Wags, visit wiggywags.com or to find out where to buy Wiggy Wags in your town, visit mindwiggywags.com and start enjoying having man's best friend around. You are listening to all about nursing live from the BBM Global Network and TuneIn Radio.

I'm Dr. Joyce Batch with a host of the show. Prior to the break, we were just beginning to hear more about the difference that nurses are making, particularly with school nursing. And so maybe you could go back and start to share a little bit more about the kind of impact you're seeing in what the school nurse is.

Right, this is a story that needs to be told Joyce. We have a PhD prepared faculty member who's also a pediatric nurse practitioner. Over 20 years ago, she opened a school-based clinic in one of the poorest zip codes in the city. And it's been providing services, but I'm really encouraged that recently she was able to implement telehealth to 11 other underserved schools.

In Tennessee, we are way below the national standard as far as a number of school nurses per student. So this was a way to bring important services to very vulnerable children and for nurses to lead the way that story needs to be told. That's amazing. Yeah, I hope to incentivize my colleague to get involved in media so that she can tell her story, get more support and extend this model other places, maybe in Texas where you have.

You know, that's interesting that you bring up school health nurses because I don't think the general public understands the complexity of the children that they take care of today. And when I was in my former role with the Cine Healthcare System, Charles Barnett, the CEO at the time, had helped to subsidize the school nursing in the Austin Independent School District. They were seeing nurses and I was so amazed to learn what kinds of challenges they had and the kinds of challenging children and different kinds of health issues that they were addressing. And the impact that they were able to have was just incredible.

So I really think that it's great that you raised that because it is definitely a very important area. Is there anything else that you would like to share as we get closer to the end of our show today? Because the information you've given this evening is very impactful and I think gives us a lot to think about. Well, what I'm encouraging nurses is think about while that nurses have learned already all the skills they have, all the knowledge they have, they should not be daunted to move into using media to help them do their job, improve health and health care even better.

Their skills that are easily learned, they're learned by community advocates that don't have the advanced training and intimate knowledge that nurses have. So it's just the question of just do it. Now it's so important. It just seems like if we have three and a half, I was going to say we have like three and a half million nurses that start to really tell the stories about the things that they do that make a difference.

I think that it would be pretty impressive for the consumers and others to realize just how special these individuals are. And I was just curious, do you have a certain place that you would recommend that people go to to learn more about the kind of training that you can provide? Because I think that would be a great resource to also share this evening before we close our show. Is there a website or something?

Actually, I wish we did. This is one of the things that we need to do as a profession. But I will send you and you can post it on your website, a link to a blog where we have nurses and others communicating about health care. And you can see the diversity of the ways that we do it.

We have a poet, we have a comic artist, we have myself who writes policy pieces. And I think you'll see that there's something for everybody. Everybody has a talent and they just have to find what it is and how to use it to advance health and health care. I'll send you the link.

That would be great. I think people would really appreciate being but have a reference to go back to because it sounds like you've just done a lot of amazing work. And again, this is an extremely important topic for nurses across the country to begin to be be comfortable with, as you said, to stand up, be confident and tell their stories. And I think that that's really a great idea.

I actually will have a male nurse who is working in the media arena that will be on a show later in July. And so I'm looking forward to having him also talk about why he's been getting engaged. And I think that you've set the stage for some wonderful dialogue as we continue to have future shows. So I really appreciate you being with us this evening.

So this is all about nursing. I'm your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor. I'm live on the BBM Global Network and tuning radio.

See you next week. You've been listening to All About Nursing with your host, Dr. Joyce Bachelor. Tune in each week and get a daily dose of nursing and the health care services they provide and how nurses are finding innovative ways to address the key health care issues they're facing today.

Here on Dr. Joyce Bachelors, All About Nursing. You've been listening to the BBM Global Network. The ideas, views and opinions of this broadcast are those of the participants of the program and are not necessarily the ideas, views and opinions of the BBM Global Network Company.