Tag: Social Media

Publication and new opportunities on the horizon

It looks like Spring is finally here! I am sitting in my sunny living room with the windows open, loving this beautiful weather. The semester is winding down, for both my school nurse job and my graduate program. Some exciting news to report- my article on School Nurses and social media is going to be published this May in the NASN School Nurse journal! I am very proud of this accomplishment, and can’t wait to see it both online and in the journal. There will be a podcast to go along with the article, so stay tuned for that. I am also going to present a poster on the same topic at the NASN Annual conference in Philadelphia this summer, which will be a great experience.

My family and I spent Spring Break in Washington, D.C. this year. My Houston born kids were over the moon when we landed and there was snow on the ground. We had a very busy week sightseeing at all of the popular places there- the National Mall and Monuments, the Smithsonian museums, the Holocaust museum, and Arlington cemetery. It was a fun week, and I am glad we got to spend some quality family time together.

Roosevelt pic

My favorite statue from the FDR memorial

This time next year I will be graduating from SBMI with my Healthcare Informatics Masters degree, so I am beginning my job search for an Informatics position. It’s time to start putting all those theories into practice! It’s always nerve wracking to shift gears and move in a different direction professionally, but that has always been the case with my nursing career. I’m still going to keep ties with my school nursing colleagues, as I think there are still some untapped opportunities there. I have been fortunate to be a member of several committees and workgroups at the regional, state and national level, and I am constantly learning new things from my colleagues. And just when I thought I was done completely with school, I learned of this. DNP, anyone? Maybe I’m not done after all!

Update from #TSNO2014

TSNO 2014 poster

I haven’t posted in quite some time, and I have been meaning to get back into the blog. This semester I have been so busy at school, but things are finally settling down. Over the weekend I attended the Texas School Nurses Organization conference, and lucky for me it was here in Houston! I really enjoy attending conferences. It’s always so interesting to me to hear from other people in my profession how they work, what challenges they have overcome, and what they like and/or don’t like about their careers. I always come away with new information, and new colleagues to keep in touch with. I presented a poster on School Nurses and Social Media while there, and helped coordinate the Twitter feed #TSNO2014. It was a great conference, and I am glad I got the opportunity to work with TSNO and run the Twitter feed during the conference. Now if I could just convince more School Nurses to Tweet!

 

New School Nurse Blog and ANIA info

Wow, the first month of school has been crazy busy. Between going back to work in my Elementary school clinic, my graduate school classes kicking back up, and my two kids in middle school, things have been hectic! I have not been blogging as much as I would like, but I will be back once things settle down in a few weeks.

In the meantime, check out a new blog from School Nurse BrennaQ. You can also follow Brenna here on Twitter.

And for my fellow Informatics Nurses out there, if you haven’t already, you should join the American Nursing Informatics Association, aka ANIA. They have some great resources on their website, including a vast online library where you can access CE offerings and archived webinars. They are also on social media, so check out their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages. Social Media is a great avenue to connect with fellow Nurse colleagues!

Happy Friday friends!

What are Nurses blogging about?

I’ve been searching a lot on the Internet lately for Nursing and Nurse-written blogs. One of the topics I’m really interested in is how and why Nurses are using social media. As someone who has used apps like Twitter and Facebook for many years in a personal capacity, I have been hesitant to delve into Social Media as a professional. I’m most comfortable on Social Media just as I am in my real life, as an observer. I can spend hours reading Twitter posts and articles from others, yet only comment occasionally. I rarely post on polarizing issues, and I’m also not one to post a lot of personal details. (Starting a blog has been a big step outside my box, to say the least.)

My hubby, Mom and sister are all Nurses, and they use social media as well but more in a personal capacity like me. And as the mother of two pre-teen boys, I can tell you they live and die by their Instagram feeds, text messages from their friends and YouTube videos of the latest Xbox game. I’ve spent many a late night perusing their phones while they are fast asleep. 

So when I found this list of Nursing blogs on the AJN blog, I felt like I had hit the jackpot. It’s going to take me time to go through the list and digest all these blogs. One of my current projects is to read all the Nursing blogs I can get my hands on, and see what is out there. The ANA has guidelines for social media use, but I’m curious to know if and how these translate into real life. Do most Nurses heed the ANA recommendation, and have separate social media accounts for their personal and professional lives?

Poster session at #NASN2014

One highlight for me during the NASN conference was the poster session. As part of the Johnson & Johnson School Health Leadership team from Klein ISD, we have all spent many hours working on our Enduring Change project. Our team decided to present a poster about our project, to gain experience with presenting in a professional setting as well as share the progress we have made with our initiative.

I did not realize until we started to work on the poster content that everything would be digital, and the “poster” would in fact be created using Power Point and displayed on a large TV screen. (The digital nerd in me was super impressed). After MANY revisions, we were happy with the final product, and felt the red background of the J&J template worked well with the graphic that our team member Yvonne designed. The day of the poster session we assembled our team (in matching Klein ISD Health Services shirts!) to answer questions from the attendees and hand out info related to our poster and project.

Our poster presentation at the NASN 2014 conference. Pictured left to right: Laurie Combe, Linda Rosemeyer, Beth Pali, Brittany Lloyd, Yvonne Clarke, Regina Wysocki.
Our poster presentation at the NASN 2014 conference.
Pictured left to right: Laurie Combe, Linda Rosemeyer, Beth Pali, Brittany Lloyd, Yvonne Clarke, Regina Wysocki.

We were honored to win an award for our poster in the Health Promotion category, and I don’t think Brittany took the award ribbon off all night!

I attended all three of the poster sessions, and really enjoyed the experience. There were posters on research studies, posters on long term projects like ours, posters about students with rare medical conditions, posters on school wellness initiatives, and posters on smaller projects that School Nurses had completed on their own individual campuses. Creating a poster seems like an intimidating prospect, but it really is not! On my own campus, I can think of a few programs we have done that could be poster worthy: the yearly Health Fair, our “Walk to School Day” in the fall, the “Bubble Patrol” that rewards students for good handwashing habits, and our use of websites and social media to keep in touch with our parents.

The point is that as School Nurses we are already participating in poster-worthy projects on a daily basis in our clinics. Presenting a poster at your state or national conference is a great way to be recognized for all your hard work, and champion your projects. It also gives you a tremendous sense of satisfaction to see all of your hard work and efforts reflected on a fancy digital screen for all the world to see.

What poster-worthy project can you think of from your own campus? Consider sharing it at your next conference!

 

Blogging for NASN today

Check out my post on the NASN website today about School Nurses and Social Media.

Special thanks to Jessica Porter (@porter_primada), for organizing the #NASN2014 Nurse tweeters and contributing to today’s post. And here’s a link to her great blog Go Ask the Nurse.

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