National Nurses United

Karen Higgins, RN changed, but then you finally meet, and everything's just the way it should be." That unity becomes even more important, Burger says, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to pour unlimited money into the political process. "Without a strong nurses union, we are going to get crushed," she says. As co-president of NNU, Burger has set her sights on organizing every nurse in the country—whether or not Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act to facilitate union organizing. "The politicians have let us down on many fronts, but the nurses themselves are going to make that happen." Karen Higgins, RN CO-PRESIDENT A s a 35-year veteran of critical care nursing, Karen Higgins, RN knows intimately the power of nurses' professional judgment to save lives. She remembers clearly her experience with one particular patient, a young man in his thirties who had been brought to the intensive care unit at Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts with kidney failure and a buildup of fluid around his heart. Doctors were pleased with his progress and ready to discharge him, but Higgins sensed that something was wrong. "Every time the dialysis nurse attempted to adjust the machine to draw fluid from the patient, his blood pressure would drop," Higgins recalled. She asked the attending cardiologist to run just one more echocardiogram, which revealed a dramatic deterioration in his condition, and the patient was rushed to surgery. Had he been discharged, Higgins says, he might have died. Higgins recounted the episode in an essay for a documentary on nursing that aired on National Public Radio in 2007. "Like air traffic controllers, [nurses] watch over our patients making sure they remain safe and don't crash," Higgins wrote. "We are the surveillance system for our patients. But as a nurse I not only monitor my patient's condition—but I am also pilot who delivers complex technological care on a minute by minute basis. As the nurse I am the one person who is responsible for the patient's survival from the moment he or she comes into my care and making sure that care is continuously tailored to meet the patient's needs." "I love being a nurse and love using my years of experience and skill to care for patients and their families at perhaps the most difficult time JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2010 of their lives. But the expectations of nurses have become unrealistic. I cannot be in two places at once—and as patients' medical needs become more complex, I worry that I will not be there at a critical moment to assess a patient in need… I have been my patients' last line of defense and will continue to be there until I can no longer provide safe care." Higgins brings the same sharp instincts and dedication she displays in the ICU to her work as a patient advocate and spokesperson for her profession. During Higgins' two tenures as Massachusetts Nurses Association president, from 2001-2005, her eloquence and candor made her a favorite of the media, where she has been quoted in dozens of articles about nursing and has been involved in numerous radio and TV talk show debates. Radio and TV talk show producers often called the MNA public relations department frustrated because they were having trouble booking hospital and nursing industry executives who would be willing to go up against her to discuss patient safety issues. Higgins led the MNA through one of its most successful periods following its disaffiliation from the American Nurses Association in 2001. "MNA has become the organization it is today because of the passionate, unflinching leadership of Karen Higgins," said current MNA President Donna Kelly-Williams, RN. "And her commitment to MNA's participation in a national union for frontline nurses has been a driving force in the founding of the NNU." A champion of nurse and patient safety, Higgins has for the last four years served as co-chair of the Coalition to Protect Massachusetts Patients, an alliance of more than 130 healthcare, labor and consumer advocacy organizations working to pass legislation setting safe limits on nurses' patient assignments. She has helped raise the alarm about the epidemic of violence against nurses, who are assaulted on the job more often than police officers and prison guards, setting up a special MNA task force to address workplace violence prevention. Higgins was among the first nurse leaders to recognize the importance of building a national organization that could represent the interests of front-line nurses and the patients they care for. In 2001, immediately following the MNA's vote to disaffiliate from the American Nurses Association, Higgins offered a resolution calling for the creation of such a union that was unanimously endorsed by the MNA membership. This year, said Higgins, "we have realized our dream for a national voice with national power." Jean Ross, RN CO-PRESIDENT W hen someone confronts Jean Ross, RN with the statement, "We're not trying to solve world peace, here Jean," be prepared. You will see the blue eyes flicker and the jaw set. "Yes we are," she will say. And you will know unequivocally that it's time to get back to work on the chunk you're working on, because it all fits into a bigger picture. For Ross, that bigger picture is a better world built on fairness and equity, which she knows will take constant diligence to achieve. "Some things in life are not fair," says Ross. "But you can do things to make them fair—and no one can tell me they can't be changed." Ross's tenacious personality makes her a natural activist—a passion she discovered shortly after beginning her nursing career in the mid-1970s. "I happen to work in Minnesota, where we are highly unionized through the Minnesota Nurses Association," she explains. "That W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 19

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