Nurse Talk

Here are highlights of National Nurses United Director of Organizing David Johnson talking about a recent Supreme Court ruling, the Federal Arbitration Act. Bad for labor...good for corporations! All part of a strategic assault on Labor in the U.S.

David Johnson, Director of Organizing for National Nurses United shares with Nurse Talk Radio about how the recent Supreme Court ruling to bar workers from acting collectively to resolve illegal workplace discrimination is a “disgraceful assault on the rights of all working people” and a “direct attack on the Constitutional rights of freedom of association.” This is one in a series of anti-labor S...

Life is like a song. It has crescendos and rhythm and a defined beginning, middle and end. The Threshold Choir takes this song metaphor literally and uses it to comfort terminally ill individuals with music and harmony. While singing at bedsides, people have told the singers they feel less pain, anxiety and loneliness. Today, the group has expanded from its origin in San Francisco to 150 choirs ar...

Laugh, learn and listen to Nurse Talk Radio on Progressive Voices Tune In. You can download the PV APP @www.progressivevoices.com. On the show, this week a California Judge abruptly overturns the End Of Life Option Act. The law allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients with six months or less to live. Hundreds of Californians have already taken advantage of that option, including 111 in...

With the attacks on workers’ rights nurses applaud Senator Bernie Sander's Workplace Democracy Act. "This bill is desperately needed by all non-union workers across the country who need a union and who want a union, but who are denied their right to freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively because of employer harassment, intimidation and opposition", said RN and Co-President of...

With us for this podcast is Attorney for Compassion and Choices ( the organization that fought to pass the bill), Jonathan Patterson. California’s End of Life Option Act was signed into law in 2015 by Governor Jerry Brown. The law allows doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to patients with six months or less to live. Hundreds of Californians have already taken advantage of that option, including 111...

Barbara was a big fan of Nurse Talk and she and her daughter Missy wrote some very moving blog posts for us that chronicled Barbara’s Alzheimer’s and eventually her death. Her daughter Missy was her caretaker and their relationship is a true mother, daughter love story. Missy joins us for a short conversation about why Barbara was/is so special.

Laugh, learn and listen to Nurse Talk Radio on Progressive Voices Tune In. You can download the PV APP @www.progressivevoices.com. On the show, this week we talk to members of the Threshold Choir. With over 150 Choirs around the world, the mission is to offer those transitioning beautiful songs at the bedside. Healthcare in America's Donna Smith talks about California Single Payer, cuts to the CHI...

Nurses Fight For S.B. 562 And Remind Us Why California Needs Gavin Newsom by Nurse Talk

Laugh, learn and listen to Nurse Talk Radio on Progressive Voices Tune In. You can download the PV APP @www.progressivevoices.com. On the show, this week is Executive Director of Social Security Works, Alex Lawson. Alex talks about what you need to know about the so-called balanced budget amendment--which is anything but! Also, the Square Needle Award and a delightful interview with author and hum...

Executive Director for Social Security Works, Alex Lawson visits with Nurse Talk Radio about the so-called Balanced Budget Amendment. A few weeks ago Paul Ryan and his Republican caucus voted on a so-called balanced budget amendment (BBA.) While it sounds like a vote for mom and apple pie, every politician who supports it will be voting to cut Social Security. Ryan and his caucus have so far been...

Laugh, learn and listen to Nurse Talk Radio on Progressive Voices Tune In. You can download the PV APP @http://www.progressivevoices.com. On the show this week is RN Jane Sandoval. Jane worked closely with a team of dedicated nurses from National Nurses United, California Nurses Association and law makers to pass legislation that makes it mandatory for healthcare facility employers to subscribe to...

Listen to our Nurse Talk Special Feature Mini Podcasts on our website or during the Thom Hartmann Program. This week RN Jane Sandoval joins us to talk about the new California Workplace Violence Prevention Measures. Workplace violence is a serious and growing issue affecting nurses and other healthcare workers and their patients. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United fought for...

California healthcare employers are required by law to have comprehensive, unit-specific workplace violence prevention plans in place by April 1, 2018. National Nurses United and California Nurses Association fought long and hard for these protections. RN Jane Sandoval visits with Nurse Talk Radio about the importance of these protections.

What is Schoolbox? One U.S. Trauma doctor says it’s the most innovative initiative she has seen in response to the needs of children who have experienced trauma. Every year, 77 million children have their lives torn apart by armed conflict or natural disasters. School box founded in 2017 by Belle Sweeney, provides mobile, solar-powered child-friendly spaces that operate from whatever infrastructur...

Our friend RN and Humorist Karyn Buxman talks about the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor’s 28th Annual Conference coming up April 12-15th in San Diego CA. Humor and laughter professionals from around the world are invited to learn the latest applications and benefits of therapeutic humor presented by field experts. CEU and CME credits will be available for the conference session as we...

This week on Nurse Talk Radio we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Rana Awdish about her book In Shock: How Nearly Dying Made Me a Better Intensive Care Doctor. In Shock, is Dr. Awdish's searing account of her extraordinary journey from doctor to patient, during which she sees for the first time the dysfunction of her profession’s disconnection from patients and the flaws in her own past practi...

Join us for this special edition podcast with Director of Public Policy for National Nurses United, Michael Lighty. In Michael’s article he notes, the labor movement exists to stop money from being the metric of value and power. Healthcare is exhibit A for money as the metric (see Elizabeth Rosenthal’s book, “American Sickness”). Unions derive power from members, engaged in fights to win a better...

With every passing day, it becomes clearer who's reaping the benefit of the huge tax cut handed over to American corporations by the Republican-dominated Congress in December. The big drug company Pfizer seems intent on being a pace-setter in cranking out the benefits of the tax cut to stakeholders who need them the least. In an announcement in late January, Pfizer said it was shutting down its re...

An estimated 3,500 infants die each year from deaths related to sleep. Together, these are called sudden unexpected infant deaths, which includes both sudden infant death syndrome and deaths from suffocation, asphyxiation, strangulation and other preventable deaths. RN and author of Secrets of a Baby Nurse, Marsha Podd talks about co-sleeping, bed sharing and room sharing and gives good advice to...

It's a great day for 19,000 RN's and NP's but an even better day for their Kaiser patients. Join us for this Nurse Talk Radio special edition podcast with RN and Co-President of National Nurses United, Deborah Burger.

We all knew this was coming and true to form Paul Ryan is busy preparing for Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid cuts this year. But as our Healthcare in America Senior Correspondent, Donna Smith says, the cuts may be subtle until after the mid-terms in November. Subtle but impactful including raising the age of retirement from 65 to 70, adjustments to Medicaid qualifications and other measure...

What is it like to lose your mind, to see slices of one’s identity slowly drifting away like blow balls? Veteran journalist Greg O’Brien likens the journey in this expanded edition of ON PLUTO: INSIDE THE MIND OF ALZHEIMERS—with 12 new chapters—to a flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto, as seen through the lens of NASA’s intrepid spacecraft New Horizons. ON PLUTO, an international award winner when ini...

Listen to our Nurse Talk Special Feature Mini Podcasts on our website or during the Thom Hartmann Program. This week RN Maureen Dugan talks about pivotal union case Janus v AFSCME. The case was heard recently by the Supreme Court and could have devastating affects on Unions across the country, not the least of which is the largest RN Union in the country, National Nurses United.

This week U.S. Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s appointee, is expected to be the deciding vote in the pivotal union case Janus v AFSCME. But during oral arguments in the case on Feb. 26, Gorsuch gave no sign which side he’ll take. He asked no questions, made little eye contact with attorneys, and often rested his chin in his hands. California Nurses Association RN, Maureen Dug...