Good Morning Class!

Well at least it is good morning in my time zone :0)

This blog post deals with issues contributing to nurses not taking a politically active role. There are several reasons including nurses not understanding the role, not knowing their resources, not realizing their influential capability, and lack of empowerment, exposure, and emphasis in nursing education (Mason, Leavitt, & Chaffee, 2007; Zauderer, Ballestas, Cardoza, Hood, & Neville, 2009). The latter is very near and dear to my heart.

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing 'Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice' (2008) underscores the importance of nursing curricula containing content related to policy development, policy analysis and evaluation, political activism, and the role of professional organizations in health care policy.  Although many baccalaureate nursing programs have adopted this curriculum, the literature still shows a disparity in nursing involvement in the political arena (Zauderer, et al., 2009).

I would like for each of you to share one personal reason keeping you from being politically active. It is important to identify the barriers so we can create solutions. A reason I had was the idea that there are plenty of nurses out there doing this, so why would I need to get involved. Then I came across a startling statistic; there are approximately 314 million people in the United States and of those approximately 2.7 million are registered nurses (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012; United Stated Census Bureau, 2012). That is less than 1% of the population!!! With statistics like this every voice does matter!!!

                                                References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2008). Essentials

     of baccalaureate education for professional nursing practice.

     Retrieved from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/education-

     resources/BaccEssentials08.pdf

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). Table 6: The 30 occupations

     with the largest projected  employment growth, 2010-20.

     Retrieved from

     http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t06.htm

Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M., W. (2007). Policy and

     politics in nursing and health care (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO:

     Elsevier Saunders.

United Stated Census Bureau. (2012). U.S. & world population

     clocks. Retrieved from

     http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Zauderer, C. R., Ballestas, H. C., Cardoza, M. P., Hood, P., &

     Neville, S. M. (2009). United we stand: Preparing nursing

     students for political activism. The Journal of the New York

     State Nurses Association, 39(2), 4-7.