National Nurses United

Nurse Media_3 2/25/11 10:26 AM Page 13 Sandy Summers, an RN who runs the nonprofit group, The Truth About Nursing, and is coauthor of Saving Lives: Why the Media's Portrayal of Nurses Puts Us All at Risk. "When nurses educate the public, they're not only giving them valuable health information, the public is also learning that nurses are health experts—a different image than most television shows portray." The Nurses' Station plans to debut some time in March with a segment following up on many of the patients originally featured in filmmaker Michael Moore's document SiCKO, which showed how insured patients were often denied care by insurance industry bureaucrats. Four years later, how have many of the patients in the film fared under our deteriorating and changing healthcare system? On radio, NNU continues to sponsor Nurse Talk, a weekly radio program airing in Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and available on the Internet, that's hosted by registered nurses Casey Hobbs and Dan Grady. The show has been running since 2009 and now reaches 50,000 listeners per month. Hobbs and her partner Pattie Lockard got the idea to create an hour-long interview and variety show along the lines of National Public Radio's popular Car Talk program. "We said to each other, 'This show would be hysterical if we had nurses do it,'" said Hobbs, who currently works as a hospice nurse. "People like to talk to nurses; they don't talk to doctors. The idea was to educate and provide information, but also have fun." Almost any material is fair game for Nurse Talk. The hosts have recently examined serious topics such as massive insurance premium hikes by the nation's largest HMOs, workplace violence against nurses, and the need for national RN-to-patient staffing ratios. In the same hour, they field often hilarious health questions by phone from listeners and interview quirky RN personalities, such as the Laryngospasms, a group of practicing nurse anesthetists who create and perform medical musical parodies. Hobbs and Lockard aim to expand their listenership and would love to air their radio show on a station during drive time (peak commute hours when many listeners are in their cars). Today, many registered nurses also get their news and learn about issues via the Internet, whether it be through websites, blogs, bulletin boards, their Facebook and Twitter friends, or their professional LinkedIn network. In recent months, NNU revamped its website, www.nationalnursesunited.org, to be more streamlined and useful for registered nurses. National news affecting healthcare and nursing features prominently on the homepage, and buttons to all of NNU's social media profiles, like Facebook, our Twitter feed, our YouTube channel, and our Flickr photo albums, are easy to find and click near the top of every page. A link to this publication is listed under "RN Resources." NNU produces a whole host of sometimes funny, sometimes serious, but always informative, videos on topics ranging from what it's like to organize at a new facility to testimonials about the need for safe RN-to-patient staffing ratios. Often the videos simply provide coverage of our events that you just won't find on network news or your local tv station. You can watch them all on our YouTube channel, comment on them, and share them with friends and coworkers. NNU is also exploring other social media platforms to further connect nurses to the organization and to one another, to inform and educate them, and to relate experiences that otherwise might never get shared with a wider audience. "Nurses have to tell their stories, because though everybody claims to know nurses, rarely do nurses speak for themselves in media of their own creation," said Lighty. "This is the only way to convey the reality of the decisions, interventions and experiences of nurses at the bedside." JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2011 How to Watch, Listen, Read, and Share E The Nurses' Station on GRITtv Launch date TBD GRITtv airs four times daily on Free Speech TV (Dish Network channel 9415 and DirecTV 348), on cable, and on public television stations. Check out www.grittv.org for where to watch and to view past episodes. N Nurse Talk Boston area: Listen on station WWZN 1510AM every Saturday at 11 a.m. EST or live stream at www.revolutionboston.com San Francisco Bay Area: Listen on Green 960AM every Sunday at 2 p.m. PST or live stream at www.green960.com. Podcasts are available any time at www.nursetalksite.com, and you can also download and listen through TheRadioFactory.com or iTunes. U National Nurses United's social media platforms Visit our website at www.nationalnursesunited.org. Friend us! Our Facebook profile is under "National Nurses United." Our Twitter feeds are @rnmagazine, @nationalnurses, and @protestintheusa. Check out photos of everything we're doing at www.flickr.com/nationalnursesunited. Watch videos on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/nationalnursesunited. Also check out the California nurses' channel at youtube.com/calnurses, the Minnesota nurses at youtube.com/mnnurses, and Massachusetts nurses at youtube.com/MNAWebmaster. W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . 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