Nursing orgs resisting concentration camps and genocide - so far, not so good

It sounds like a simple charge, and it is - leverage your privilege. It means we need to use our advantages to benefit more than just ourselves.

Simple and easy are two different things. The privileged act to protect their privilege, and at most give over the tinniest crumbs with great reluctance, loud complaints, and never for very long.

Organizations exist to perpetuate themselves, and reward those who protect the organization's interests most fiercely.

Those are my general observations. Your mileage may vary, and I'm open to hearing from those who think otherwise. But, those are my general observations.

I thought of a question to ask nursing professional organizations - How are you leveraging your privilege (money, members, media platform, political relationships, etc.) to openly stand in resistance to the genocide currently taking place along the Southwestern US border, and to the concentration camps where it is taking place?

I thought of a way for nursing orgs to respond:

First, by watching a recent 56-minute film on YouTube called, "Caring Corrupted," produced by the Cizik School of Nursing featuring contemporary nurses talking about nurses and nursing organizations in Nazi Germany who supported and participated in genocide. 

In case you missed it, the film is about "nurses and nursing organizations in Nazi Germany who supported and participated in genocide."

After watching the film, I ask nursing orgs to do the work to earn a passing grade in a seminar put together especially for nursing orgs. 

You can read all about it in my post, Seminar: How nursing organizations are leveraging their privilege to resist concentration camps.

The seminar is modeled on Howard Dean's seminar on democracy: participants can earn a passing grade of 'D' by voting (literally the least you can do); earn a grade of 'C' by donating money to a cause or candidate (maybe a little painful for a moment, but still easy); earn a grade of 'B' by knocking on doors, making calls, and otherwise working on behalf of a candidate or cause (nice work, keep going); and earn an 'A' by running for office or serving on a government board, committee, or similar capacity.  

So, how have nursing orgs responded so far??

Let's start with my own professional org, the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association - HPNA.

HPNA earned a grade of "NOPE" twice last year, the only nursing org I'm aware of that specifically, intentionally, and very clearly, when asked to stand against genocide, said "NOPE" not just once but TWICE.

HPNA did not sign the June 19, 2018 letter written by the Nursing Community Coalition and sent to the former administration* secretary responsible for overseeing genocide in the form of separating families at the border, even though HPNA is a member of the Nursing Community Coalition.

2018 letter of concern about genocide 

from 33 nursing orgs but not HPNA (and others)

HPNA "NOPE"#1

HPNA said "NOPE" a second time, after I spoke directly with the former HPNA President to make my case, and followed up via email.

She subsequently wrote back: 

HPNA "NOPE"#2

Today I had the chance to speak with Len Mafrica, HPNA's chief operating officer and expert on the use of Twitter by nurses. I've been pestering him via Twitter via HPNA's official account run by their social media guy, but it led to nothing.

I was glad for the chance to ask him about last year's decision to say "NOPE." He responded that he really didn't have any details for me about the decision, and whether there are minutes or some other record.

He noted that the Executive Committee consists of the HPNA President, President-Elect, and Clerk/Treasurer, though I'm not clear if it also includes the CEO of HPNA.

Ms Wiegand died last November. I made a donation in her memory to RAICES TEXAS, and also one acknowledging the resignation of HPNA's former CEO.(pdf)

Len noted he was aware of my request to participate in the seminar about how HPNA is leveraging its privilege to resist concentration camps, but had nothing new to report at this time, and would maybe get in touch with me after it was discussed.

I asked if the time frame for the discussion was a matter of hours, days, weeks, months, or years. He responded, "Weeks."

So at this point HPNA's transcript features:

- two NOPES -  Org says it wont do anything: because standing against genocide alongside over 30 fellow nursing organizations has nothing to do with the organization's public policy guiding principles, as evidenced by the email I received from the President following her discussion with the Executive Committee; and for some unknown reason, as evidenced by its failure to sign the June 19, 2018 letter sent by the Nursing Community Coalition, even though HPNA is a member.

- one DecBec - Replied, declined to talk (further) because: it's going to take weeks before HPNA leadership even talks about it, as evidenced by my phone conversation with Len Mafrica, HPNA's Chief Operating Officer.

More to follow. Thanks for reading. See you next time.

Case Study: Bullying behavior by physicians - cause or effect of nurse passivity?

figure 1 - two hoops and some question marks

figure 2 - memo to HPNA members, annotated

figure 3 - the solution starts with each doc & nurse

The problem isn't individual physicians and nurses. 

The problem is a physician culture perverted by power and privilege. 

The problem is a nursing culture perverted by powerlessness and passivity.

Find the sordid details from my earlier post, "This is f'd up in too many ways to count."

Read the official details at AAHPM.

Read the official details at HPNA...Oops, sorry, nothing about it on their website.

This case is both superficial and deeply disturbing.

It’s about a hashtag for a conference, and not a very good one (I mean the hashtag. The conference is awesome, been twice!)

It’s about the toxic dance of bullying behavior and passivity, and it stops now.

We need to reverse the power dynamic.

Doctors as a group need to give it up.

Nurses as a group need to take it, along with pretty much every other clinical discipline and non-physician ‘team member.’

This isn’t a petty gripe. 

This is the tectonic shift we need to get power back where it belongs - in the hands of patients and families.

Resources for case discussion

Important for nurses to read first

from a piece in Vox about Gaslighting

"How do you recognize that gaslighting is happening?

Take a look at the list below. If any part of the list resonates with you, you may be involved in a gaslighting relationship and need to look further.

1. You ask yourself, “Am I too sensitive?” many times per day.
2. You often feel confused and even crazy in the relationship.
3. You’re always apologizing.
4. You can’t understand why you aren’t happier.
5. You frequently make excuses for your partner’s behavior.
6. You know something is wrong but you just don’t know what.
7. You start lying to avoid put-downs and reality twists.
8. You have trouble making simple decisions.
9. You wonder if you are good enough.

While all of these symptoms can occur with anxiety disorders, depression, or low self-esteem, the difference with gaslighting is that there is another person or group that’s actively engaged in trying to make you second-guess what you know is true. If you don’t typically experience these feelings with other people but do with one particular individual, then you might be a victim of gaslighting."

Turning Up the Lights on Gaslighting

by Kate Abramson, Indiana University 

in Philosophical Perspectives, 28, Ethics, 2014

"...the phenomenon that’s come to be picked out with that term is a form of emotional manipulation in which the gaslighter tries (consciously or not) to induce in someone the sense that her reactions, perceptions, memories and/or beliefs are not just mistaken, but utterly without grounds—paradigmatically, so unfounded as to qualify as crazy. Gaslighting is, even at this level, quite unlike merely dismissing someone, for dismissal simply fails to take another seriously as an interlocutor, whereas gaslighting is aimed at getting another not to take herself seriously as an interlocutor. It almost always involves multiple incidents that take place over long stretches of time; it frequently involves multiple parties playing the role of gaslighter, or cooperating with a gaslighter; it frequently involves isolating the target in various ways. And there are characteristic things gaslighters say: indeed it is remarkable how much overlap there is between phrases that Gregory uses in the movie, and the sorts of proclamations that are made by gaslighters to their targets in real life."

Nurses and doctors: Pick one or more from the following to supplement your new understanding

Nurse Expert Advice: How To Deal With Doctors Who Bully 

from nurse.org

Doctors Bullying Nurses is a Sad and Terrifying Epidemic

from Elite Readers

When the Bully is a Doctor

from the New York Times

Doctors Throwing Fits - One of the Hardest Parts of Being a Nurse is Dealing with Bullying Doctors

from Slate

Now a little reward for scrolling to the bottom...

David Bowie died just a few days before Jeanne. That enormous coincidence led me to develop a special devotion to David Bowie in the same way my departed catholic mother in law developed special devotions to a long list of saints and other religious figures.

I told this to a nursing colleague once, and a little sheepishly. His response? "At least David Bowie is real."

Well, to some. It's really a matter of faith.

David Bowie will always be helping me grieve, and here's a particularly inspirational service at a YouTube shrine of his.

"Don't ever say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready

I'll never say I'm better, I'm better, I'm better

Don't ever say I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready

I never said I'm better, I'm better, I'm better, I'm better than you"

I remember the day

We went out to the ballgame...

Google reminded me about 2013 this morning, but didn't really have to. I remember it well.

I started my last full time regular nurse/employer gig in February, as the hospice staff educator in a nurse-run home care association. The association model is your basic group practice, in this case with nurses instead of dentists, accountants, lawyers, or physicians - though somehow the nursing group practice model is required by law and regulation to have a physician medical director on board, and the nurses can’t really do anything themselves without some physician first saying do it - or at least anything they’ll get paid for.

The association had tacked-on hospice care at some point in its history, and a few months before I was hired had acquired the home care and hospice ‘business’ of the local university medical center. It was pretty much a merger of equals from what I could tell, based on staffing and census. And of course it was a chaotic mess.

Back to the 2nd of July.

A hospice RN case manager in one of the offices asked if I was interested in a pair of Red Sox tickets for the next night’s game. She had grown up the daughter of a fan dad, watching together through the long season whenever the games were on TV, and listening on AM radio whenever they weren’t.

Her dad had died the year before. They had been season ticket holders since before the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1918. She would never give them up, but knew she couldn’t go to every game. She was, as you would expect, a terrific hospice nurse.

I snatched the tix, a night on the town for me and Jeanne before we joined her siblings by the seaside for the holiday. I also worked out the final details for my July 3rd work day with the music therapist. She had four visits scheduled, including two in facilities and one in a home where the final trajectory was… trajecting?

I’ve treasured the few opportunities I’ve had to be with music therapists as they do their work, to watch and listen to what they’re doing, and to what happens all around when they do it, and to me. They add to IDG. I think a lot of people don’t fully appreciate who music therapists are, or what they bring to patients, families, and the rest of the team.

First - I love a good hootenanny, and can bite my tongue through endless choruses of ‘Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.’ I especially love lounge singers at senior facilities, crooning and scatting to karaoke Frank and Ella. Music and flowers make us smile, touch the deepest parts of our brain different from cognition.

That’s not what music therapists do, as I understand.

Well, they know a lot about the deepest parts of our brain, and they certainly know a lot about music. But the basic path for a certified music therapist is as rigorous as any clinical discipline I’ve ever seen, and quite a bit more than some.

A music therapist has undergraduate credentials in music, including actually being able to do awesome music; and graduate credentials, including supervised clinical practice, in using that exquisite talent therapeutically.

One thing that helped me appreciate the role of music therapists was the on-call rotation at another hospice. Social workers, chaplains, and music therapists were included together as ‘supportive care and counseling,’ and the usual reason for off-hours supportive care and counseling was the need for crisis intervention. 

Who’s on supportive tonight? Oh, it’s Julia. The singer? Excellent!

More about the music therapy program at Berklee.

Anyway, it was about 8:30 when I rolled into the dank cubbyhole of my office where the music therapist and I had planned to meet at 8:45, and the phone rang before I put down my bag. It was my nominal boss, the director of the association’s education department.

“What’s your plan for today?” she asked. 

“I’m meeting up with the music therapist. We’ve been talking about doing joint visits for a while, and since today’s pretty quiet around the office…”

She cut me off. “No, Annabelle already told her you won’t be joining her. You need to work on the orientation manual.”

Huh? 

Annabelle was a nurse manager who had a long association with the… association. A lifer who before had been a lifer in the Army, she frequently reminded everyone how she was counting off the remaining days to retirement number two with a chain of paper clips. At the end of each day, one less paper clip. She usually flipped it at a secretary.

“That’s bad luck,” the secretary told her. “You’ll die before you retire if you don’t stop doing that.”

Annabelle didn’t give a shit. Annabelle did whatever she wanted. Just a year before she had decided being a nurse manager in hospice was much easier than being a nurse manager in home care, or at least that’s how she played it.

Annabelle still took the managing part of her nurse manager role seriously, and applied herself diligently to prying into the lives and activities of anyone within earshot, and interfering however best she could. Apparently the day before, maybe even at about the same time I was exchanging money for Red Sox tickets with a colleague in one office, the music therapist had casually noted to another colleague in another office that she and I were doing joint visits.

Annabelle overheard, and the rest is history. She lit up, then the phone line to my nominal boss lit up, and at the end of it all I spent a few hours in the dank cubbyhole sifting though milk crates full of 3-ring binders of outdated policies and procedures.

Jeanne and I drove in to Brookline, and parked the car at a secret spot in my old Coolidge Corner neighborhood. It’s a straight shot from there down Beacon Street to Kenmore Square and Fenway Park.

Every picture tells a story, so please enjoy whatever pictures catch you, and listen. The day is now.

edited 7/6

This is f'd up in too many ways to count

#HashtagsAreHard

This is f'd up in too many ways to count, but we can boil it down to:

Physician culture is perverted by power and privilege.
Nursing culture is perverted by powerlessness and passivity.

Also, too: the chase - Nursology and Nursing own the word "care" and its related "caring." 

This issue is not up for discussion.

Back story...

I got an email from my nursing professional organization, the Hospice and Palliative NURSES Association - HPNA. It was a joint digital celebration between them and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative MEDICINE - AAHPM.

They're all excited because they've apparently devoted substantial talk and energy to a bold new plan, well, I'll let them tell it...   

tl:dr The hashtag #hpm for 'hospice and palliative medicine' was felt exclusive to non-physicians, so a bunch of docs came up with the idea of stealing the word 'care' from nursing for a new improved hashtag #hpac for 'hospice and palliative care.'

"A diverse group of AAHPM and HPNA Twitter leaders met earlier this year to discuss the 2020 Annual Assembly hashtag. 

The leaders concluded that a change in the hashtag was necessary - #hapc was more representative of the growing and evolving field. 

Participants in the discussion were 

Amy Davis MD
Ashley Deringer MD
Kyle Edmonds MD 
Allison Jordan MD 
Christian Sinclair MD 
Holly Yang MD 
Allison Lundberg not a doc, marcom
Laura Davis not a doc, mktgconsult

Harry Crytzer not a nurse, marcom
Len Mafrica not a nurse, assoc exec

A "diverse group?" 

No, there were eight reps from the physician's org, and two from the nursing.

Six of the eight from the physician's group are physicians. One's a marcom staffer, the other's a marketing consultant.

Both of the reps from the nursing org were men (nursing is 90%+ women), and neither of them are nurses.One does marcom, the other runs the biz side of the org.

WTAF?!

First, to the docs: 

What is wrong with you? Is this what you learned and practiced through pre-med, med school, residency, and since - when you want something, just take it. 

You get no credit for disguising your attempted theft with a bogus "diverse group." 

Your actions are even more shameless than when I first read about the silly hashtag nonsense and assumed you docs just rolled over the relatively numerically matched nurses in your usual ways - brute force, slowly whittling away, whining how "everybody cares, I care, we all care," and/or bribing them with food.

But holy crap - you didn't even let any actual nurses into the room! Just two flunky dudes. Was the HPNA accountant unavailable?

It stops here and now. If that bothers you, tough. 

This is about patients and families, not you. For once.

The only way to begin addressing the gross imbalance of power between medicine and nursing (and every other freaking clinical discipline on the team you like talking about) is for doctors to give it up and/or for nurses and allies to take it.

Don't worry, you'll be fine. Doctors will always be fine.

Here's a quick lesson in language, clinical disciplines, why our industry is such a mess, and what you need to do about it.

Medicine uses science to explore and identify illness in the organs or systems of someone's body, which is seen as a problem to be dealt with through various ways, mostly involving some form of burning, cutting, or poisoning.

Doctors diagnose and treat. Science never stops, and neither does the ability to identify illness and develop treatments. Battle metaphors abound, and people like winning. In this context, you personify the intersection of science and skill at its best. Success beats failure. Nice work, but remember it's still baseball - the season is long, and Ted Williams didn't get a hit roughly six times out of ten in his best season, and he was the greatest hitter who ever lived.

You play an important role, physician friends, but it's only one of the many roles and contributions in our system that benefit patients and families. Somehow lots of people, including you all, decided doctors were pretty much the only folks who mattered, or at least who mattered much more than anyone else.

If you don't think you're the most important player, think again and harder. If you still say you're an outlier physician in a culture perverted by power and privilege, why'd you do this? How do you explain a doc/nursing discussion stacked 8/2 and with no actual freaking nurses?

If you now say, "Damn, you're right. This is f'd up. That hashtag is gone." I say, excellent. Be an outlier, then change the culture.

Part of being an outlier physician in its perverted culture also means you have to stop talking and give up your seat to someone who hasn't been to the table. You invite that person to take your seat, and you stand by them not over them. That person should probably be a nurse, but they could also be a pharmacist, chaplain, social worker, volunteer, formal caregiver, informal caregiver, family member - you get the idea.

Being an outlier physician in a perverted physician culture means you do this again and again, you call out your physician colleagues when you see them flaunting their privilege and abusing their power no matter who they are in your pecking order, especially when they're higher, and you hold the door open and keep it open for all of those who haven't been able to get in.

As for "everybody cares, I care, we all care." Of course you do, it's a human capability. Your human caring is evident in your choice to use science in ways that benefit patients and families.

But you don't get to steal the word "care," dilute its meaning by including everybody on the clinical team within its definition, you no longer get to do all of the talking, or make every decision.

Care is the philosophical foundation of knowledge (nursology) and the science basis of practice (nursing). 

Care is why and how nursing exists. Caring is what nurses do. 

Medicine is science for diagnosis and treatment.
Nursing is political action and intelligent care.

I'll stop here for now, except to say that I'm even more troubled by my nursing colleagues who either don't see the problem, go along with it because, or worst of all think they somehow benefit by it.

Also too: Maybe more important than a hashtag - Previous Post

Seminar: How nursing organizations are leveraging their privilege to resist concentration camps

Text Version

NU001 - Seminar: How nursing organizations are leveraging their privilege and #DontLookAway

An exploration of how nursing organizations are using resources, mobilizing members, and taking action to resist the U.S. government policy towards families fleeing horror and seeking asylum of separating and placing them in concentration camps. Nursing organizations will be contacted by member and non-member nurses to learn their response to this humanitarian crisis.

Passing grades

D - The organization promotes #Lights4Liberty with pinned Tweets, website embeds, statements of support from leadership with outreach & PR, and specific emails to members. It’s the least effort required to pass.

C - The organizations contributes money and service to three organizations: #Lights4Liberty, @RaicesTexas, and (ideas? ACLU, others on the ground?); and promotes fundraising and other support by acting as a link or channel for its members. Because money is easy with privilege but spending it requires thought, effort, and even hurts a little bit maybe. Also meets requirements for D.

B - The organization develops, promotes, and distributes information, materials, programs, etc. that describe how #Lights4Liberty relates to the organization’s specific mission (toxic stress, emergency/triage, maternal child health, public health, the role of advanced practice nurses, bedside care and supervision, etc.). Also meets requirements for D, C. Nice work. Keep it up.

A - Everything for D, C, and B, PLUS the organization co-sponsors, participates in, or otherwise supports a specific #Lights4Liberty event as the start of an ongoing focus on this topic and related ones as proof of its belief that nursing is political action and intelligent care. That’s some leveraging! People are paying attention. Keep walking the walk.

Non-passing grades (not including orgs not contacted - N/C)

IgNon - Ignored, no replies to contacts: (list).

DecNo - Replied, declined to talk, no reason given: (respondent/role).

DecBec - Replied, declined to talk because: (reason, respondent/role).

Nope - Org says it wont do anything: (reason, respondent/role).

WTAF?!?* - Org supports separating families and putting them in concentration camps.

*see also IgNon, DecNo, DecBec, and Nope.

Required viewing

CARING CORRUPTED - The Killing Nurses of The Third Reich

Cizik School of Nursing Published on Feb 24, 2017, “a REMI Platinum Award-winning documentary film that tells the grim cautionary tale of nurses who participated in the Holocaust and abandoned their professional ethics during the Nazi era. The 56-minute film, Caring Corrupted: the Killing Nurses of the Third Reich, casts a harsh light on nurses who used their professional skills to murder the handicapped, mentally ill and infirm at the behest of the Third Reich and directly participated in genocide.”   Watch on YouTube   

Dedicated to the Life & Memory of Robert Cizik

April 4, 1931 – June 4, 2019

With Love and Respect

Robert Cizik Obituary

Cizik School of Nursing, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston 

More to follow...

Another friend I've never met - in person

I first met Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH online several years ago through her blog GeriTech, where she writes about technology and geriatric care. Leslie is board-certified in geriatric and internal medicine, with a practice in San Francisco focused on aging adults living at home and supporting their family and formal caregivers.

She developed a comprehensive set of online resources for clinicians, caregivers, and the public that have since evolved into Better Health While Aging providing, “practical information for aging health and family caregivers.”

The content is free, with in-depth features and podcasts on the wide range of topics we're likely to encounter on our trajectory towards end of life  - hospital delirium, cognitive decline, staying safe from falls, etc. 

Leslie recently launched a subscription-based online membership community to support those caring for aging parents called, Helping Older Parents (HOP). 

I joined for a few months. My own parents are long gone, but I signed up to get a sense of how such a community could work. Unlike the informal peer-support of public and private online groups, HOP provides access to clinical guidance in the context of an established professional medical practice.

I cancelled my membership after a few months, but only because I wasn’t taking advantage of the support it provides. 

I’m very comfortable recommending Leslie’s work here, and expect that some of you will find great value in the content she has developed, and in the membership community.

Please make it stop...

You don't want to see the next slide.

I wrote this after completing a one-hour online continuing education program on the topic of Advance Care Planning (ACP), provided by a nursing professional organization:

"The content is important, the presenter is proficient, but the format is awful - narrated slides. Ugh. 

Trying to teach in that format is like trying to juggle while wearing handcuffs. 

The narration often matched the slide, word for word, and the presenter seemed to be getting tired towards the end. 

I know you can do better, and we (learners) deserve better. Seriously. 

The three video clips are a good start towards better, though the roll plays were kind of stiff and the miraculous turn with the old couple was a bit contrived, still good for trying, so keep it up. 

Probably the most interesting new thing that I learned from this program is the term, "New Jersey-ite."

What will I do in my practice after completing this program?

I will review the 3-minute video clip on YouTube featuring Atul Gawande talking about how to have a difficult conversation with a patient and family, presented several years ago at the New Yorker Festival. Check it out."