Super Nurse Update

Hi sibs,

Shirley sent me a note asking how things were going….be careful of what you ask…..Evie…if you want to blog this, fine to cut and paste.

Yesterday I facilitated an invitational “gathering of experts” from throughout California. It was a 2-day conference and our charge was to generate a set of bold, brilliant, breakthrough, pragmatic, immediately actionable (Yeah, right. No pressure) recommendations for resolving the nursing faculty shortage in California. It has been identified by many as the priority “crisis” behind the nursing shortage. Stephanie Leach, Assistant Director of Labor and Workforce Development for California, who is on the Governor’s Policy Task Force, has to submit our recommended action steps to the Policy Task Force next Tuesday. We had 40 in attendance, including Patricia Benner many nurse executives, deans and directors.

Overall it was a fantastic two days and one of the “highs” of my facilitating experiences. We had Play Dough and clay and artpads and things like that to stimulate creativity and used the World Café format, which impressed them. It was good to have Patricia there, because I sought her advice a couple of times and it was very helpful.

Today I’m catching up on the 7 remaining research papers I have to grade (each takes 1-2 hours), so that I can start on 41 more that have to be completed in a week, plus discussion boards to grade and comment on, plus a 20- report back to a graduate school program on Holistic Health Education that I reviewed, and provide my summary for the Governor’s Task Force, all of which are due today. Oh, yes, and the pressure is on to get the Christmas lights up on the cul-de-sac, because we’re the only dark home. (Time to move.)

This is not a way to live one’s life and can all be boiled to a simple, underlying root cause: Inability to say “no!!!”. From now on, I’m going to add one more word: “Hell no!”

It is all rich and gratifying work. Our meeting was held in the Shriner’s Hospital…which cares for seriously injured and burned children. So I just kept thinking of them and their families.

Thanks for asking. Here’s to “hell no!” in 2009!!

Evie, Bob laughed his heart out on your comment about your new tenant and her area of research. That is one for the memory books!!!

Love you so much!

jb