Another episode of the cost-cutting days of the gay-nineties.
However, it's still pertinent today. Just keep your eye on the topics of research and no matter what, you will see a plethora of dubious ideas, wasting countless hours and dollars. One of my favorites was the study regarding the variation in counting a radial pulse rate. Did you begin at "0" or "1" with your counting? Let's see now, did you end up with 100 or 105 and what did the next nurse do 8 hours from now? Now me for example, I always started at "1"; who knows, maybe countless lives were lost because of my carelessness?!?

Nursing Intensity

The intensity of some nurses
To be a part of research history,
For complexity, severity
And the psycho-social mystery,
Emblazoned with multiple credentials
Exalted with power, with purity,
Producing results, without question
That threatens their own job security.

The unacceptable growth-rate of health-care
Has little to do folks, with nursing,
It's more about top end mismanagement
And the deep pocket ways of reimbursing,
The financial investments of technology
Far outspend the paltry cost of our salaries,
But as the single greatest body of workers
We're the targets for their shooting galleries.

Yes, I am a skeptical nurse
And I question the work of our scholars,
Is it money well spent in the long run
A well invested use of our dollars?
How many nurses will be out of a job
At the mercy of staffing acuity,
While top management back slapping big boys
Will applaud their cost cutting ingenuity.

Fibril_late; 9/95