Sexual intimacy is an important quality-of-life issue for cancer patients, but it’s a difficult subject to talk about – even for nurses.  

Freyja Herzog, who just earned her bachelor’s degree from the Washington State University College of Nursing, wanted to do something about that.   

She researched and developed a brochure and training seminar that she presented to oncology nurses at Cancer Care Northwest and Providence Health Care this spring. Herzog is a member of the WSU Honors College, and the project served as her culminating thesis. 

That level of work was “really very rigorous for an Honors undergraduate student,” said her faculty advisor on the project, Assistant Professor Andra Davis of the WSU College of Nursing in … » More …

Jacqueline Flowers graduated with 4.0 GPA from the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at the WSU College of Nursing in Vancouver. Not long ago she was weighing competing job offers to work as a nurse practitioner at health clinics in rural Washington.  

Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, blowing a hole in budgets throughout the health care system.  

Suddenly her first-choice employer withdrew a job offer amid a hiring freeze. Flowers mulled whether she should wait to see whether the freeze lifted, but in the end accepted a job in a different rural community.  

Disruption, however, is not the first thing on Flowers’ mind as she considers the impact of the pandemic on her plans and on health care.   

She talks about creativity and flexibility in how Washington State … » More …

If 2020 wasn’t already the Year of the Nurse, it would be now.  

The World Health Organization had christened this the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife” in honor of the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.  

Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, testing nurses worldwide in a generation-defining event.  

As millions of people shelter in place, nurses are in hospitals and clinics facing the emergency head-on. They’re triaging, treating, celebrating and mourning their patients.  

Today is the beginning of Nurses Week. This year, more than ever, we say “thank you nurses.”