I just finished reading a short book called “Nurses are Nuts” by Anthony Langley. The book illustrates all of the ways nurses help other disciplines in the medical field on a regular basis.
Nurses help doctors by putting in verbal orders or providing them with lab and imaging results that can easily be accessible in the patient’s chart. Nurses help phlebotomists with lab draws if the patient is a hard stick or if the phlebotomist is behind. Nurses help respiratory therapists with trach suctioning or helping set up ventilators. Nurses even help housekeepers by cleaning up spills or cleaning rooms to facilitate placing patients.
These are just a few examples of how nurses help other workers in the hospital. The book is a satire because it says nurses are nuts for allowing themselves to do everyone else’s jobs. Nurses are often short staffed and no one can really fill in that role and provide extra support. As nurses we are used to helping others, but by taking the time to fulfill other people’s job responsibilities, it is taking time away from our own tasks to our patients.
My only wish with this book is that there should be an extra chapter about how nurses can solve this problem or stand up for themselves. Yet, perhaps that will be a sequel.
Anyways I highly recommend this book to all of my fellow nurses. It was an interesting and easy read, that I quite enjoyed. I am sure you can certainly relate to most of the book. You can find it for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or Target. Let me know what you think once you’ve read it!
