This has nothing to do with nursing, but I thought that it was important to share the news that the world is now a safer place and the skies are safer to travel.

And that’s because my errant jar of Cornelian Cherry Preserves was confiscated at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale. I know, silly me for thinking that something so sinister as a sealed jar of jam could be brought on board a plane.

What happened is that I made a visit to this fantastic place called the Russian International market, located right near where my parents live in Boca Raton, FL. This is a real import store, complete with huge bags of salted fish straight out of the Volga River, barrels of borscht and sour pickles, and pickled cabbage. It was a melange of Russian imports as well as those from neighboring countries. So I picked up some Russian chocolate bars (the wrapping was so pretty) and a jar of Cornelian Cherry Preserves imported from Armenia. I mean, I’m not going to find that at the Pike Market in Seattle. The jam was a present, and thinking that the new bizarre rules for carry on luggage applied only to liquids, creams and aerosols, it never occurred to me that jam would be considered a dangerous weapon.

I should have put it in my suitcase, but I didn’t. I carried it with me, with the chocolate, and this dangerous life threatening item was discovered in my carry on. The guy who pulled it out looked really sheepish, like he knew that this whole charade was idiotic and he felt like such a fool for having to do this–but it was his job. People were watching. If he let me go through, his superiors might think that he, himself, was aiding terrorism.

So he told me that I could “check” the jam.

I told him my suitcase was already checked. How could I check the jam?

Well since I had only checked one bag, I could go back down to check in, and check the jam.

I had to pause for a few seconds to contemplate this idiocy. “Are you saying that I should go and check in a jar of jam?” I asked. “Don’t you think that it will break?”

He gave me a perfunctory smile, like, “hey kid, I’m only reciting the script I memorized. It doesn’t make sense, but I only work here.”

And to say nothing of the fact that I would miss my plane if I did so. The jam disappeared, along with all of the other contraband stolen from travelers.

Now here is the really really scarey part, and I am not kidding here. When I got on the plane, I realize that there were keys in the pocket of my jeans. I had walked through the metal detector and it had not alarmed. Apparently, it was not working!!!!

So let’s get this straight. They stole my innocent jar of jam, but the metal detector was unable to detect the keys in my pocket. That is scarey. If my keys got through, what other pieces of metal have made it through???

Security is an illusion in this country. All this talk and pomp and circumstance. Are we really safer because pablum is being snatched from the hands of parents, that yogurt is being snatched from the purse of an 80 year old woman, or that a 4.2 oz tube of calendula cream is being stolen from a man with itchy hemmorhoids–all in the name of security?

What DID NOT happen in the wake of 9/11 was the upgrading of our airport security. We still have the same poorly trained and poorly paid folks doing the screening. Bush and his clan squeal and scream about security, but the govt refuses to cough up any money to train and hire an elite team who can really make a difference. As always, the contract for security at airports goes to the lowest bidder. Minimum wage jobs do not attract highly motivated and skilled people.

There has to be a better way to screen people and move the lines more quickly and efficiently. We need to make airport screening a highly sought after position, where it can attract people who are really motivated to do it, and not those who take these jobs because they have no skills to do anything else.

And how often is the euqipment checked? How sensitive is it?

Bottom line–does it make sense to steal jam when the metal detector doesn’t work? Does not allowing people to bring a jar of peanut butter on board really make air travel safer?

Whatever happened to finding Osama bin Laden?

Leave it to the British to come up with a great solution to nurses who are too tired, too overworked, and too poorly paid to “smile” at their patients. And what is this great solution? Why, you get free cappuccinos and chocolate chip biscuits if give your sick patients a great big toothy smile!

From the London Times:

A NATIONAL Health Service trust is offering nurses free cappuccinos and chocolate chip biscuits to encourage them to smile at patients.

King’s College hospital NHS Trust in London introduced the reward scheme after surveys raised concerns that nurses were not being nice enough to the sick.

One common complaint was that nurses almost ignored the patient and chatted about the person’s condition as if he or she were not present.

In recent years there have been growing concerns about nurses who are “too posh to wash” and prefer to spend their time on administrative and technical tasks rather than basic care.

Two years ago a resolution at the annual congress of the Royal College of Nursing proposed that nurses were now “too clever to care” and suggested that the compassionate part of their job should be delegated to healthcare assistants. The provocative motion was a reference to nurses increasingly concentrating on technical dutie

I guess the administrators in the UK are just as dumb as the ones here, and think that a free chocolate biscuit is going to make up for horrendous working conditions and mega-stress. And of course, buying a few lattes and snacks is a lot cheaper than actually paying the nurses a living wage or hiring new staff.

Have they even thought to ask why their nurses aren’t smiling and making kissy faces? Could it be that they are exhausted and totally fed up, and are getting ready to write their resignations? As in the U.S., many nurses are still working in hospitals simply because it pays better and they need to feed themselves and thier kids. And they haven’t left nursing because of poor economies. Voila, the reason they aren’t smiling is because they are stuck in a miserable job and can’t see a way out at the moment.

Apparently, the nurses don’t agree with this “solution” to the problem.

However, an editorial in Nursing Times magazine said nurses did not need bribes to be helpful and pleasant to patients. It said: “Excessive workloads and paperwork prevent nurses from spending time with their patients and caring for them properly. This is a fundamental problem that can never be rectified with a hot drink and a biscuit, or other such imports from industry.”

Am I in Seattle? I mean, the sun is shining. Like as in shining and there is blue sky. I came home yesterday about 6pm, and it wasn’t raining. It was cold, after basking in the Florida heat, but no rain. Amazing.

Today is sunny, bright, and the trees across the street have buds. Maybe there is hope that I won’t need to build an ark afterall.

I was just thinking, being in Florida and all, that Florida has a huge nursing shortage. I remember when I first came here to work in the 1980s, I felt like I had gone back in time about 25 years. There were hospitals that still required nurses to wear caps (not sure what they did about guys), and the pay absolutely sucked.

I think that Florida has given up on caps, but the pay still sucks. It has gotten a lot more expensive to live here, but their pay scales are some of the worst around. One new grad said that she was offered a job here in South Florida, starting at $15 an hour. Wow! Such a deal.

The Spammers have invaded. True, I haven’t checked my comment box in almost 3 weeks and there are 874 spams in there. Since I’m using a primitive dial-up, it doesn’t even all download (times out) and the box where I can check off “delete all” doesn’t come up. I may have to wait until I get home to eradicate the spammers.

They are so annoying. I really need to look into better filters.

Anyway, that’s today’s complaint.

I am going to go into major withdrawal if I don’t blog about the nursing shortage. While I was at the gym (my parents’ condo complex has a nice gym but the downside are the row of TV sets blasting CNN), a commercial came on. I was reading while I was on the stair master, but I happened to look up and saw an image of an elderly man lying in bed, and hovering over him was an angel in white.

Yes, a young blond angelic woman, clean and fresh, who seemingly had all day to stand by the bedside of this man and adjust the oxygen prongs on his face, smile, and probably was about to sit down and read him a bedtime story. And then comes a voice from the background saying something like, “Nursing, you are needed now more than ever.” And on comes the insignia for Johnson & Johnson, leaving you to their nurse fantasy site, Discovernursing.com

I truly got nauseated. Maybe they should show the nurse with puke on her scrub clothes (which most nurses wear these days, by the way, not white), or being rebuked by her brainless manager for failing to respond to 5 call bells at the same time.

Why don’t they show the nurse who is being forced to work mandatory overtime? A close-up of her sweet smile might be pleasant, as she tries to figure out what to do with her two kids who are waiting at home for her.

Or perhaps the nurse being yelled at by the patient, and then the hospital administrator telling her that the “customer” is always right, and she is obviously in need of “revisiting” her customer satisfaction skills.

Am I being cynical? Are these utterly ridiculous? They remind me of the Chevron ads which say, “Chevron does good things for people.”

And of course, any intelligent person would have to wonder; If nursing is so wonderful, then why is there such a shortage? Why are these nauseating commercials on TV in the first place? Do we see similar ads for becoming a computer geek, engineer, doctor, lawyer, stockbroker, veterinarian, biologist, oceanographer, or accountant? Why are there not dire shortages of these professions?

Well I ended up staying in Florida longer than anticipated. Everytime I looked at the weather forecast and saw rain rain rain in Seattle, I changed my return flight home. I figured that I’ve got to store up enough Vitamin D to get me through the rest of the winter.

And so, I decided to blog from my laptop. We are having unseasonably cold weather here–like aren’t I lucky to be here for the coldest night of the year. Still, it is warmer and drier than Seattle, and even though it is only 7am, the sun is out. It is cool, which makes it nice for walking. I don’t like the intense heat and humidity which starts to set in around April-ish. Winter coolness is fine by me.

Anyway, that’s where I’ve been. Plus having to finsh up some work.