Posts under ‘blogging’

I will be hosting Change of Shift, the premier nursing blog carnival, here on Digital Doorway on February 5th.

There is no specific theme for this next edition of CoS, and I welcome submissions from any blogger, as long as the post has something to do with nursing, medicine, health, health policy, health care, health care reform, disabilities, social justice, human services, human relations, or the human condition in general. (So narrow, I know…..)

Anyway, feel free to email me directly (my email is available through my Blogger profile), or submit via Blog Carnival, the user-friendly website for all things carnival. All submissions are due by noon on February 4th. Any submissions received after that time may or may not be included, depending on my mood, workload, and level of insomnia.

Thank you, and I look forward to hosting Change of Shift this Thursday, February 5th.

The newest edition of Change of Shift, our favorite nurse blog carnival, is ready for reading at Marijke: Nurse Turned Writer.

Yes, folks, it’s happened again! Change of Shift, our favorite blog carnival representing the nursing profession and those who love (and hate) it, is up and at ‘em. Please click here to begin your journey into some of the best blogging by nurses on the blogosphere. We guarantee that you will find at least one blog post that really speaks to you!

Please be so kind as to click here to read my first post as a Guest Blogger over at NurseConnect.

At the invitation of NurseConnect, I will occasionally be posting to their site about issues salient to the nursing profession and the healthcare industry. Thanks for taking the time to read my post, which, for understandable contractual and copyright reasons, will not be available on any other website.

The 200th edition of Grand Rounds (the first and most famous medical blog carnival on the Internet) is now up for your reading pleasure at the popular medical blog, Grunt Doc.

For those of you not yet acquainted with blog carnivals, they are like online magazines usually devoted to a particular subject, featuring links to posts by multiple bloggers, and usually “hosted” by a different blogger every month. Change of Shift is a nursing blog carnival founded by Kim over at Emergiblog , an award-winning nursing blog of which I am exceedingly fond. For a directory of blog carnivals, visit Blog Carnival , a clearinghouse for such online wonders.

Do you want to pass some time reading some of the best writing by and about the healthcare field? Grand Rounds and Change of Shift are the places to start.

Since birthing Digital Doorway in 2005, I have found great sustenance and release in writing online. I love the idea of instant publication, the immediate gratification of writing down one’s thoughts and then sending them out into the blogosphere instantaneously. Blogging is now an accepted form of communication and instant journalism and I am happy to still be riding that wave. Nursing blogs have proliferated over the last few years, and a list of some of my favorites can be found on the right-hand side of this blog’s homepage.

Several writing opportunities have come along due to my involvement in blogging, and I’m happy to report that I will actually have my first piece of writing published in print by Kaplan Publishing at some time in the near future. In a previous post, I notified readers that Kaplan was looking for writing by nurses on particular themes for a series of three non-fiction books by nurses. The first book, which focuses on doctors and nurses, will include my 2500-word essay which cannot be reproduced here due to contractual agreements, so interested parties will need to purchase the book after publication.

Writing is finally becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life, and as I begin to write regularly for Nurse LinkUp, I am casting my eyes around for further work in both print and online media. I am happy to have found a time in my life where I can grow as a writer both professionally and personally, and I welcome any feedback or input vis-a-vis other directions for growth and opportunity.

In the midst of my personal struggles, I am very pleased to announce that the Nursing Online Education Database (NOEDb) has named the top 25 nursing blogs on the Internet, and Digital Doorway was rated #15. NOEDb apparently used third-party ratings from sites like Google and Technorati to rate the sites and gather objective data.

I am honored and humbled by being included in this list of excellent nurse bloggers, and it is moments like these that remind me that there are actually real people out there reading blogs, feeding this technological revolution in communication and connectivity. Blogging can often feel like a lonely venture, with few comments to bolster the blogger who sends missives out into the ethers in hopes of connection and readership. Thanks to all who read Digital Doorway, and please continue to support bloggers by visiting their sites and letting them know you’re out there. And thanks again for visiting. After all, without readers, blogs are just more digital noise.

A string of whirlwind weekends—and the impending death of my step-father—have been generally impeding my ability to blog as consistently as I would like. Regular readers will also notice that death, dying and the grieving process have also made themselves quite visible in recent writings. When faced with the mortality of a loved one, one’s own mortality also indeed comes to the fore.

Gyalse Rinpoche has said: “Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch; nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions. If you have got to think about something—make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death.”

The above is interesting advice at such a transitional time in life, when the stability, well-being and future of family structure is in question. How can one plan when the future is so uncertain? One can only ask for guidance and peace of mind to weather the storms of the unfolding days.

This is just a brief note to remind new (and seasoned) readers that I have two other blogs which you are invited to peruse at your leisure.

The first is Latter Day Sparks, an homage to our dog Sparkey who died September 2nd, 2006 of kidney failure. I tend to post a memory or photo on the 2nd of each month, and Mary posts a missive intermittently.

Next is A Nurse and His Treo, wherein I post a daily photo taken with my trusty little smart-phone.

Thanks for visiting, and y’all come back now, y’hear?

Well, I’ve been home since Thursday and have resisted the temptation to blog until today, giving myself further time off.

While I felt the urge to write while we were away, I felt a much stronger competing urge to do less rather than more. Blogging and writing have become, to some extent, something I feel I “should” do, as well as something that I enjoy and thrive upon. Knowing the difference between the two is crucial, and continues to be a challenge for me.

Aside from connecting with family and relaxing, time away from work was the most important aspect of these last few weeks. It is so easy for work to become the center of one’s universe. Most of us spend an average of forty hours per week at work, as well as considerable time spent preparing, commuting, recovering from the workday, and preparing yet again for the subsequent day. Weekends are spent escaping from the travails of employment, pushing thoughts of work to the recesses of the mind, if only for a few hours. It is often an all-encompassing endeavor, and unlike our European brethren, we Americans enjoy an average of only two weeks of vacation per year, as compared to the European average of six weeks of paid “holiday”.

Nonetheless, I am grateful for these last two weeks and the unwinding that they allowed me to experience. This being Sunday, thoughts begin to turn towards the morrow, although I will do my utmost to simply enjoy this gorgeous New England day without allowing dread of Monday morning to negatively color my final day of rest and recovery.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the working world, refreshed, relaxed, and relatively tan. With my next full week off probably not until the depths of winter, I’ll try to savor the effects of “vacation mind” and carry it into the weeks ahead. I may lose sight of this sense of well-being amidst the general tumult of the office, but I can only hope that it will bring some sense of refreshment to my days, if only fleeting. Above all, I give thanks for the privilege that allows me to be gainfully employed, and to experience the well-earned relief of paid vacation and rest.