Over the past year, the growing concern over mental health has been brought into focus.
So how do you take care of your mental health? Below are steps towards keeping your mental health in top form
Find Time For Yourself
Take breaks- Remember to take breaks for yourself. Don’t wait until you are overworked or close to burn out before taking breaks.
Do what you love- Find a hobby that excites you so that when you are not at work, that you find something positive to channel your energy into.
Socialize- You are not alone! Remember that. Sometimes sharing your stories and listening to others let you know that you are not alone but have other people to shar with it as well
A Staffing firm that deals with emergency preparedness has
been one of those in the fore-front of bringing nurses and respiratory
therapists to the frontlines in the fight against COVID19.
Krucial Staffing
In responding to COVID19, Krucial Staffing’s actions have
been prompt and engaging. If you are looking to supplement your income, this
would be a good way to do it.
The staffing firm has had many good stories shared about
them by nurses and RTs in the frontlines. The company has its headquarters
located in Overland Park, Kansas.
They also have the first Annual Conference scheduled for October 28th– October 30th, 2020 and you can sign up for that here
Nurses on the frontlines, share your stories about Krucial
Staffing, our readers would love to hear it!
KP Mendoza was running in Central Park last week when he was flooded by exhaustion, anxiety, guilt, and frustration.
KP Mendoza
As the relentless pressure of being a nurse battling the pandemic in New York bore down on him, Mendoza began thinking about what could happen if he contracted the coronavirus.
So, at 24, he decided to draft a will.
Mendoza is young and healthy. But treating COVID-19patients,
wearing the same N95 mask for hours and even days at a time, forced him
to think seriously about dying. It’s all the worse that the US, he
said, was woefully unprepared for a pandemic and millions of people have
since moved on to dismissing it as a hoax.
Mendoza expressed this maelstrom of emotions on Facebook.
His gut-wrenching words have since been shared over 132,000 times, with
people thanking him, offering prayers, and lifting him up.
Overwhelmed
by the attention and praise, Mendoza, a surgical and transplant ICU
nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital, said that he stands by the first sentence
of his post: “I am no hero. I am not ready to die.”
Having
graduated from New York University in 2018, Mendoza, who considers
himself a “baby nurse,” told Business Insider that he is not looking to
be a “savior” or a “martyr.”
“This is my first job, and I didn’t sign up to die because I wasn’t protected enough,” he said. “I’m not here to just mitigate my own death. I’m here to do good work and to go home and come back the next day to continue doing good work.”
Certified Registered Nurse Anesthiologist (CRNA)– This is one of the top in-demand jobs for APRN. Nurse anesthetists offer care to patients going into surgery, by giving them anesthesia, and helping to manage patient care in the OR. They also provide follow up care for procedures that are done on an outpatient basis.
Salary Median: 120,000- 150,000 dollars annually
2. Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner : With the current trend of mental nursing, an APRN will offer counselling to her patients in an acute, outpatient or office space. They can help patients to deal with addictions, mood disorders, drug abuse and anxiety.
Salary Median: 85,000 to 95,000dollars annually
3. Geriatric or Gerontological Nurse Practitioner: With the aging of baby boomers, geriatic health sector would need more practitioners to provide care and this is a field that continues to grow.
Salary Median: 80,000 to 90,000 dollars annually
Advanced Practise Registered Nurses mostly have autonomy in their practises and with the current trend of healthcare and a move to age in place for the older population, considering a degree in one of these top three is the way to go.
This topic is of a very sensitive nature and has ruffled more feathers than can be counted ever since the original article was published. In healthcare as in other groups, I am sure; there is usually some sort of power tussle going on-who is better at something, who should be given the most respect etc. It is almost never-ending and can be exhausting!
Advanced Practice Nurses are in fact Middle-LEVEL providers.
Being mid-level providers does not take away from the expertise of APRNs.
In the hierarchy of things, healthcare in this case,
everyone has a role to play from the Patient Care Technicians (PCT) to the
Physician and when we all are masters at our roles, that it when everything
thrives. Everyone should know their role and play it well!
APRN
Not too long ago, nurses were upset when it seemed that
Medical Assistants (MAs) were seeking to replace them in physician offices so
it is with physicians- Some MDs feels slighted that after the amount of student
loans and tedious study, that APRN almost seem to be replacing them.
There is no truth to this- APRNs will NEVER replace MDs;
APRN may play a role in helping fill up shortages in under-served areas but not
to replace the group out rightly!
There is also absolutely no reason to be antagonistic toward
each other- we need to understand the bottom line here which is
MONEY/PROFITABILITY. Administrators want to maximize the best use of their
resources by hiring more and cheaper labor to “spread” around, while keeping expenses
to a minimum.
Is it fair? No
Can they do it? Yes.
The Administrators do after all owe it to their companies to be
profitable. And if substituting one for the other is the way for them to do it,
then that it the way it will be done.
“In business, you don’t get what you want, you get what you
negotiate”- Karass
If the parties APRN and Medical Association feel aggrieved,
it would better serve us to put heads together and present a unified front.
