‘Sorry, I Don’t Have Any 8’s’: Nurses Slam State Senator On Social Media For ‘Nurses Play Cards’ Comments
UPDATE, 10:26 a.m., April 24, 2019 Washington Sen. Maureen Walsh released an official statement on the Washington State Senate Republican Caucus Website, apologizing for her comments last Tuesday. “I really don’t believe nurses at our critical access hospitals spend their days playing cards, but I did say it, and I wish I could reel it back,” Walsh said in the statement. You can read her full statement here: http://maureenwalsh.src.wastateleg.org/walsh-issues-statement-regarding-house-bill-1155/ Comments made by Washington Sen. Maureen Walsh during a recent debate about a bill regarding breaks and overtime for nurses spawned a massive wave of negative reactions over the weekend. Walsh made the comments during a Senate floor debate on Tuesday in opposition to SHB 1155, which would require uninterrupted meals and rest periods and would provide for stronger protections against mandatory overtime. Walsh argued for an amendment to the bill that would exclude rural critical access care hospitals, and said it would make it more difficult for those facilities to stay open. “By putting these types of mandates on a critical access hospital that literally serves a handful of individuals, I would submit to you those nurses probably do get breaks,” Walsh said. “They probably play cards for a considerable amount of the day.” The online backlash to Walsh’s comments from nurses around the country was swift and significant. Nurses and healthcare workers shared thousands of memes, Instagram posts, YouTube reaction videos and more over the Easter weekend in response, using hashtags #maureenwalsh and #nursesplaycards. A blog post condeming Walsh from the Washington State Nurses Association caused the organization’s website to crash over the weekend, as too many people tried to view the post at once, according to a USA Today report. “No, Senator, nurses are not sitting around playing cards. They are taking care of your neighbors, your family, your community,” Matthew Keller, WSNA’s director of nursing practice and health policy, said in the blog post. “And they do read the research: mandatory overtime is bad for patient care and it’s bad for your rural hospitals. With all due respect, Sen. Walsh: perhaps it’s time for you to put down the cards and pick up the literature.” Supporters created two petitions on Change.org, one calling for Walsh to shadow a nurse for a 12-hour shift, and another calling for her resignation. The shadowing petition had about 5,000 signatures by noon Saturday and has climbed to more than 560,000 as of Monday morning. Walsh told Tri-City Herald she regretted her comment and didn’t have any malicious intent when it was made. “I was tired,” Walsh said. “I said something I wish I hadn’t.” Walsh still supports an amendment to the bill that would exclude nurses at hospitals with fewer than 25 beds from uninterrupted breaks. An unamended version of the bill already passed through the state’s House, but will have to be reconciled in the Senate following a voice vote approval of a seperate amendment that would restrict state nurses to only working 8-hour shifts.
Are Travel Healthcare Social Media Groups Too Toxic?
Social media is a pillar of many people’s daily lives in spite of numerous controversies over the years. Currently, 68 percent of adult Americans use some type of social media, and a majority of them use it on a daily basis, according to data from the Pew Research Center. Daily social media use mirrors the original goal of the platform for many—to help them stay connected with their friends, family and loved ones, and to share their experiences with them. This is emphasized even further in the travel healthcare community, as travelers have an added incentive to use social media platforms. It not only lets them stay in touch with their friends and family on the road, but it provides a platform to network and share knowledge with a vast number of their travel colleagues on a daily basis. “I use Facebook the most for sure,” said Kayla Jones, a travel certified surgical technologist. “I would say mostly because of my job. I’m away from my boyfriend and my family and all of that so I use it to keep up with them. I’m part of a couple of different traveler groups obviously, and I’m also part of scrub tech groups so I use it for…keeping up my knowledge for my next assignment.” Despite these benefits, that same Pew Research Center study found a majority of adults say they would have no problem giving up social media entirely, and many have begun reducing their use of Facebook. It’s easy to assume the decline in usage is related to the barrage of privacy scandals that have hit Facebook, Twitter and other platforms in recent years, but several travel healthcare professionals have pointed to a different issue entirely. Toxicity on social media is not a new problem—studies have shown that social media has a negative effect on mental health—but some say it’s an even greater problem in the travel healthcare community, where a combination of career stress, misinformation, and a mixing of generations can cause a perfect storm of angry posts and nasty comments. “Sometimes it’s too toxic,” Jones said. “I have to close my computer.” Travel nurse Alex McCoy, who manages both a Facebook page and a social Facebook group for her blog website, Fit Travel Life, has reduced her daily social media use to avoid getting caught up in general travel group discussions, she said. “People have started to realize how unhealthy parts of social media can be, and this is across the board,” McCoy said. “It’s a time suck and can cause a lot of negativity, so I see more people talking about filtering.” The Platform: Facebook reigns supreme Social media use is ubiquitous, but not all of the platforms are equal. Facebook still reigns as the most popular social media platform by a wide margin, despite seeing a decline users last year for the first time since 2008. For travelers, one major appeal for using Facebook over competing platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or Snapchat is the ability to form groups. Groups can be created by any Facebook user and provide a public or private space for people to connect through shared interests. Use of groups grew rapidly in 2018, after Facebook changed its algorithm to encourage users to engage more with groups and friends instead of businesses or brands. Healthcare professionals have their choice of numerous different traveler-oriented groups, which range in size from a few dozen users to tens of thousands of members. The focus points of travel healthcare groups also vary greatly, from catch-all travel nursing discussion forums to hyper-specific premium job boards. LinkedIn has also offered a Groups function since 2004, but there are noticeably less groups on the platform targeted at or created by travel healthcare professionals. Thomas Piper, a travel nurse and admin for his own group Scrub Squad 1978, said he’s experimenting more with LinkedIn and Instagram but still prefers Facebook because there’s a lower barrier of entry to communicating with others. “You can connect more,” Piper said. “People don’t have to subscribe to your Instagram, and you can get more information and more messages across that way.” Alex McCoy prefers Instagram to Facebook because of its focus on photo and video content, but agreed that Facebook offers the best tools to connect directly with others. “Instagram can be good for connecting but there is just not really the capability of creating communities,” McCoy said. “It can be hard to get ahold of people. I have tried to connect with people on Instagram and they literally just don’t see my messages because we aren’t following each other so that makes it harder to connect unless you are commenting on posts.” The Problem: Stress, separation and a lack of information Researchers, bloggers and many others have tried to identify the reasons behind social media toxicity with varying conclusions. Some have pointed to the growing political discord surrounding the upcoming 2020 presidential election, while others have aimed the blame at the “commoditization” of likes, comments and shares. Travelers and Facebook group moderators brought up several specific issues that they felt either contribute to the problem of social media toxicity—or make it worse. Picking a target Personal attacks aimed at a person, staffing agency, or healthcare facility came up as the most common type of toxic or negative posts in travel healthcare social media groups. “There are different levels,” said Andrew Craig, a former travel nurse who runs the Traveler Talk Facebook group and website. “The most subtle version of that is simply a sarcastic or condescending comment. We like to think it’s just a comment but in reality, it can affect the other person on the other side of the screen in a physical and emotional way.” Most agreed heated debates are not a problem. Discussions, even when people don’t agree, can be helpful for the community at-large, Kayla Jones said. The discussion crosses into toxic territory when it devolves into targeted, angry comments. “That’s kind of where things on Facebook and