Know My Voice®
May 07, 2025
Today, May 6th, marks the start of Nurses Week…
I started this journey as a candy striper volunteer at Jordan Hospital on the weekends in High School to help bring patients to their cars on discharge from the hospital. I wanted teh experience before nursing school at Georgetown.
I would often get asked why I wanted to become a nurse, and not a doctor. It turns out that you can be both 😉 (after a lot of years in higher education).
I have spent much on the last 20 years asking why and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in this profession. I can tire people out with my questions and vision for what should be, and not yet is, but I keep going…
My trajectory has given me the opportunity to speak to others in a variety of ways about how to think about the profession as well as creating one’s own personal trajectory.
Today, I reflected on Nurses Week as I recorded a promotional video for an upcoming event where I will serve as the Opening Keynote Speaker.
When I do speak, I often reflect back on what it was like as that new nurse and how much effort it took to get there. You can see me here as a nursing student in clinical at Georgetown in my starchy clinical outfit!
Nurses are the largest group of healthcare professionals in the world. There are 4x as many nurses to medical doctors.
Nurses are masters at knowing how to suggest treatments to doctors without making the doctors feel like it was not their initial idea (this helps build relationships 🙂 ).
Nurses are also masters at knowing something is off or not right with you (at work of course, but also with friends, family, and even strangers outside of work), without even saying anything… They will likely start trying to help you or ask you questions to figure out how they can help.
However, taking care of ourselves, as nurses, is hard at times. We have been trained to care for others first and literally put the needs of others before our own basic needs (e.g., lunch and bathroom breaks for example).
One way you can take care of yourself is taking that step forward that you have been wanting to take but have been nervous about making the move…
Maybe it is a new job, a new role, a new degree, a new specialty, a new schedule… Maybe it is not now but in the next few years.
Whatever you choose, embrace serendipity along the way….
~ Tiffany Kelley PhD MBA RN NI-BC FNAP
April 24, 2017 |
In the past, I taught Health and Nursing Informatics to graduate (Master’s and Doctoral) students. Many times the students came into the course with very little knowledge of what the course was about or the scope of practice within informatics. We often started the course with a question, “What is Informatics?”
April 23, 2017 |
This picture made my day yesterday. Members of my team sent this to me and thought I would like it. They were right. Science is real and so is the Science of Nursing.
March 02, 2017 |
Earlier this week, I was a patient in need of my annual physical exam. Every time I visit a health care facility as a patient, I gain new perspectives on what I saw, how it made me feel, and identify the broader healthcare implications. I can say that the overall experience was quite positive (despite some administrative frustrations to obtain a referral). My Primary Care Physician, PCP, treated me like a person, not box to check. Yet, I am also just one of many patients seen out of a large population.
February 14, 2017 |
The practice of nursing is both an art and a science. Yet, the individual nurse providing care is also acting from the heart.
The Heart of Nursing manifests itself in a variety of ways. As nurses, we develop relationships with patients and their families. We learn about our patients’ own interests and preferences. We develop relationships with our coworkers and fellow nursing colleagues. We step in to help our friends and families when they don’t know how to navigate the health care system. We also pour our energy into creating solutions to problems that are not receiving the appropriate attention. These are just a few of the many examples that occur each day.
January 31, 2017 |
“All I want is a blanket.” This was what I thought to myself while lying on a stretcher in pain at 3 am in an Emergency Room (ER) last year. I looked around at the nurses, doctors, and technicians with hopes one would make eye contact with me and say, “Do you need something?” After about an hour with no success, finally one nurse said to me, “Would you like a warm blanket?” My response, “Yes, please.” That small nursing intervention made a big difference in my patient experience.
Dr. Kelley has 23 years of nursing experience. She spent the last 20 years working in the field of nursing informatics. Read more
