Top 10 Nursing Blogs 2015

[responsive] [/responsive]As the manager of online recruitment and marketing at Horizon Healthcare Staffing, I’m always trying to find information about nurses and the nursing community to share. I like to use different forms of social media, RSS feeds, alerts, and blogs to find my information. There are some good nursing resources out there, and some not so good ones. I decided to make a top 10 list of the best nursing blogs around to help differentiate the good ones from the bad. How did I come to a conclusion of only 10 nursing blogs that I thought were good enough to be put on my list? Well I first started with the information. Was the information on the blog worth reading, and did it keep my interest? I didn’t want to put all the same type of blogs on my list, so I varied them between pediatric, geriatric, point of view, and general information, among others. Second, I judged the blogs on freshness. Some nursing blogs may be informative, but are only updated every few months. Those blogs did not make my list. The nursing blogs listed below are usually updated on a regular basis. Third, I wanted to see how unique each blog was. Did it just spew out information that is common knowledge, or did it give us a different or unique point of view on nursing and nurses in general? Lastly, I determined my list based on ease of navigation and how “fun” the blog was. You could have the best blog in the world, but if people don’t know where to go on your page, it becomes useless. The user experience is a big part of how well a website or blog performs. Each nursing blog listed has a short description of what the blog is about and a profile/description of the blog author (if applicable).

So without further delay, I present to you the top 10 nursing blogs to visit in 2015 (in no particular order):

The Nerdy Nurse

Brittney Wilson, BSN, RN runs this fantastic blog. She is known in the social media and tech work as The Nerdy Nurse. Her nursing specialty is clinical informatics. She combines technology and healthcare to improve patient care.

This blog is all about nursing, technology, healthcare, parenting, fun things to do, and various lifestyle topics. She produces articles frequently, and is definitely worth a visit, or 2, or 3…

Digital Doorway

This blog is run by Keith Carlson. Keith is a nurse, professional writer, well-known nurse blogger and Board Certified Nurse Coach. He’s passionate about helping nurses to create the healthiest and most satisfying lives possible!

This is a great blog from a male nurse point of view. Keith presents nurses with healthy lifestyle choices and life advice.

The Nursing Site Blog

Kathy Quan, RN, BSN, PHN has been an RN for over 30 years. She spent most of the 30 years in home healthcare and hospice where she worked as a field nurse, a nursing supervisor, branch manager, and quality improvement. Kathy draws from her experiences to produce great articles. Most of the articles she writes has to do with the geriatric population.

GraduateNursingEDU.org

Although GraduateNursingEDU.org is a site designed to help advanced practice and graduate nurses with licensing, school, and careers, they also have a very informative blog section. GraduateNursingEDU.org was designed to be a free, full-access, and fully unbiased resource for aspiring clinical nurse specialists, nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and certified registered nurse anesthetists, as well as those aspiring to advanced degrees for non-clinical nursing roles as educators, researchers, consultants, and administrators.

GraduateNursingEDU.org is the result of a collaborative effort between seasoned RNs who articulated the need for a resource devoted to advanced degrees and certification in nursing, and the vetted advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) whose experience allowed them to present answers to the questions up-and-coming APRNs most frequently ask.

Scrubs Mag

Scrubs Mag is “the nurses guide to good living”. It offers an array of resources for all types of nurses. There is a career section, beauty and style, health, nursing schools, fun, quizzes, and giveaways. The site has many different authors writing for them. They also recommend one of the nursing blogs on this top 10 list!

Although it may seem hard to navigate at times, this made this list based on the content the site provides. This is a must read site for nurses everywhere!

SarahBethRN.com

Sarah Beth Cowherd, RN says that she is a nurse looking at healthcare from the other end of the stethoscope. She began blogging as a young nurse in 2011 about her experience in healthcare. She wanted to explore how a new generation of nurses were changing the face of healthcare through the use of technology and social media. This is a great point of view blog.

Nurse Barb’s Daily Dose

Barb Dehn is a practicing Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, award winning author, and a nationally recognized health expert. She holds a BS from Boston College and earned her Master’s degree at the University of California, San Francisco. An in demand and popular national speaker on all aspects of women’s health, she also lectures at Stanford and is a frequent health expert on television. She has appeared on CBS, ABC, CNN, Good Morning America Now and NBC’s iVillageLive.

Barb has over 20 years experience listening to and caring for women. Barb gives great advice to other Nurse Practitioners in her field. The slogan on her blog is “smart, straight-forward advice from America’s leading nurse practitioner.”

Nurse Practitioner Business Owner – The Business Blog for Advance Practice Clinicians

Nurse Practitioner Business Owners blog is an idea that was born out of the need and frustration for Nurse Practitioners in private, independent practice to be able to connect, share resources, offer support, and learn from one another. This blog goes into the business of being a NP.

It is the goal of the site to look at all areas of business that NPs are involved in. The blog is curated by Barbara C. Phillips, MN, NP, FAANP.

NurseGail.com

NurseGail.com touts that it is the first health and wellness website authored solely by nurses. The blog is run by Gail Ingram BSN RN. She believes that you should get your health and wellness information from a nurse because they are the backbone of healthcare, and spend more time with patients than any other profession.

Gail has been a bedside nurse since 2005 and a nurse’s aide before that. Over 14 years in the field and a Master’s degree from NYU has prepared her for her role as an adult primary care provider and the medical adviser for the site. The website has allowed her to utilize skills from her previous career in media production.

Nurse Eye Roll

Nurse Eye Roll is run by a critical care nurse from Charlotte, North Carolina named Kati. The purpose of the blog is to talk about all of the things she learned on the fly with a little humor, honesty, and some shenanigans along the way. She gets into the nitty-gritty bedside nurse stuff. Kati wanted to create an informal forum for nurses with various experiences who can off their knowledge to newbies.

Katie graduated in 2010 with a BSN. She worked on a cardiovascular and thoracic surgical step down unit for two years, and has been working in critical care for the last two.

Bonus Blog:

NurseCode

This blog is run by Beth Hawkes, MSN, RN-BC, HACP. She’s a “nurse’s nurse” who tells it like it is and helps new grads to get jobs and succeed. As we all know, it’s not easy to get a nursing job coming right out of school. Most places require at least 2 years experience. Beth has “been an RN a long time, done a lot of different things.” Beth is a self proclaimed newbie at blogging, but her posts say otherwise. Her site is very informative (drawing from her many years of experience) and easy to navigate. Definitely worth checking out!

Do you have a nursing blog that you think is worthy of a top 10 list? Email me your blog and I’ll see if you should be added to this list. I hope this list becomes a good resource for all people interested in nursing.