Top 30 Nursing Blogs of 2013

top-30-nursingNursing is a broad field with many different roles and career levels. Reading the blogs of experienced nurses at different levels in the field can help those entering or seeking to advance in the field to learn more about the various roles, and find the career path best suited to them. These thirty blogs represent a broad spectrum of the available career options in nursing and each offers unique insights based not just on what role the blogger fills, but also how the job differs, depending on the professional context and geographic location.

Best Nursing Blogs

1. Johns Hopkins School of Nursing Blogs feature a wide variety of perspective from their various bloggers. The blogs are written by some of the foremost minds in the nursing field and offer insights into both the worlds of practice and academia.

Highlight: Hospital Waste

2. Codeblog is one of the oldest and most consistent nursing blogs out there, dating back 11 years. Codeblog very simply covers the nursing experiences of its writer and records them for the entertainment and education of others in the field or considering it.

Highlight: Rookie Mistake

3. Nurse Barb is a very popular advice blog that covers a wide range of treatment options for common ailments. The blog stands as a good example of the sort of niches available to nurses interested in blogging.

Highlight: Walk in Retail Clinics More Popular

4. At Your Cervix is a blog featuring the musings of a labor and delivery nurse. The blog also chronicles her journey from nurse, to nurse-midwife.

Highlight: Suturing

5. RehabRN features the thoughts and experiences of a rehab nurse. The blog is engaging and shares stories of both success and failure, seeking always to provide the reader with a realistic sense of the job.

Highlight: Awww, Some Lucky Folks

6. Madness: Tales of an Emergency Room Nurse features tales from the emergency room, and the perspective of a nurse working in this necessarily high pressure environment. The blog features topics from stories derived from personal experience, to advice for surviving the day to day insanity of the ER.

Highlight: The Reality of Being an ER Nurse

7. Health Care Renewal is focused on addressing major issues that threaten to compromise the core values of the health profession. The blog turns an especially critical eye on management and the centralization and abuse of power.

Highlight: A Physician Rebels Against Micromanagement by ‘Leadership Trained’ Management Extenders

8. Provo School Nurses is a collaborative blog run by a collection of school nurses from the Provo Utah area. These nurses share insight into the lives of school nurses, and advice for nurses in or considering the school nurse field. The blog also features posts centered on providing resources for local readers. This blog is a great example for school nurses looking to maximize their impact on their local community.

Highlight: Health Classes

9. Tales of a School Zoned Nurse features the stories and thoughts of a school nurse. This is a more intimate, personal look at school nursing. The tone of the blog is light, with a good sense of humor.

Highlight: Mama Bears

10. Diary of a School Nurse is all about what really goes on in the nurse’s office. The blog features stories about and advice dealing with the unique day to day situations faced by school nurses everywhere. Many of the posts are in a poetic form, which gives the blog a unique feel.

Highlight: I am a Foster Child

11. Nurse Education seeks to provide a place where debate and discussion about the nursing profession, and nurse education in particular, can be had. The blog tackles all of the major nurse education issues, and the impact of those issues on the field of nursing in general.

Highlight: Where did All the Compassion Go? (A Question to the Government)

12. A Journey Through Nursing School and Beyond chronicles the journey of a nurse pursuing her BSN degree. The blog deals a lot with the unique challenges of working a nurse’s difficult schedule, and balancing that with school and life.

Highlight: Fake it ‘Til You Make it

13. The Makings of a Nurse is all about taking readers on the journey of nursing by communicating the writer’s thoughts and experiences of day to day life as a nurse. While the blog is primarily about nursing, it also throws in posts dealing with the world outside the workplace.

Highlight: Problem Solving

14. Ten Centimeters and Beyond is the blog of a night shift labor and delivery nurse that works in a mid-sized hospital. The blogger is also a mother who has experienced many of the challenges of pregnancy on a personal level. She shares insights from both the medical and personal side of pregnancy and birth.

Highlight: LDRP

15. The Birthin’ Blog is an upbeat blog that features articles and advice beneficial to both labor and delivery nurses, and expectant mothers.

Highlight: Emergency Cesarean vs. Unplanned Cesarean

16. On Call RN… is all about the makings of an ICU nurse. The blog shares stories as well as commentary and analysis from a nurse’s perspective on medical issues and other topics.

Highlight: Black Hawk Down

17. The Nurse Practitioner’s Place features the musings of a nurse practitioner who practices in a rural area.  This mother and grandmother received her degree in 2007 and her enthusiasm for this career she arrived into later in life shows in her insightful and well written blog.

Highlight: Babies and Adulthood

18. Nurse Practitioner Business Owner Blog is a unique blog where this nurse practitioner shares insights on the business side of nursing. The blog is focused on providing resources and support nurse practitioners in private independent practice.

Highlight: Effective Today, Medicare Cuts 2%

19. Adventures of a PICU Nurse Practitioner has two areas of focus. One is relating stories and insights derived by this nurse practitioner from her time working in the PICU. The other focus is on how she sees life outside of work, and how her profession affects her day to day life.

Highlight: Chief Complaint:???

20. The NP Mom brings both the perspective of a Nurse Practitioner and a mother to the table. The blog tackles major issues of health and parenting such as eating disorders, type II diabetes in children, and online RN to BSN education.

Highlight: A Day in the Life of a Nurse Practitioner

21. ER RN brings readers advice an experiences from an ER night shift nurse. The blog recognizes that being a night shift RN takes a certain kind of person. Anybody considering night shift nursing should read this, and anybody that does night shift nursing will find a kindred spirit.

Highlight: Night Shift in the Nether Regions

22. ER Nurses Care is the blog of Leslie Block, and she loves being an ER nurse. She cares about her patients, about her co-workers, and about people on the internet she has never met. Her blog has some stories, but mostly advice, tips on staying healthy and developing healthy habits no matter who you are or what you do, but especially if you are an ER nurse with a demanding and often fluctuating schedule.

Highlight: Stand Up, Speak Out, and Do Something

23. Adventures of Hood Nurse: Hood Hospital 2, Electric Boogaloo is an irreverent look at the unique challenges faced by nurses who work in urban environments with people on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.

Highlight: Tag

24. My Strong Medicine followed the blogger on his journey through his graduate education in nursing and now continues to follow him as he makes the transition from the Master’s in Nursing to a new level in the field.

Highlight: Attempting, Finding, and Maintaining Balance

25. Digital Doorway features the musings of Nurse Keith on the nursing profession, coaching, healthcare, and more. The blog features articles on the importance of self care, book reviews, and stories about day to day events in the life of a nurse.

Highlight: Self Care: Between Flood and Drought

26. Not Nurse Ratched features fresh new perspectives on the field from a young up and comer who was inspired to go to nursing school after being a medical editor for most of her career.  This web savvy, politically incorrect, tattooed and pierced ER nurses offers an edgier view on everything from nursing to photography to Apple products to pit bulls.

Highlight: The Reasons Nurses Yell All the Time

27. Nursing Notes of Discord features fictional stories that reflect real life problems and situations faced by a psychiatric nurse.

Highlight: Wrong Person Snapped

28. Life in the NHS is written by a 30 year veteran of nursing. While she no longer works in nursing directly, she maintains the blog and offers insights and perspectives on developments in the field from an experienced point of view.

Highlight: Where Should People be Cared For?

29. The Nerdy Nurse features articles on everything from eating healthy, to building a great RN resume. The blog is light on stories and skews more toward posts about life in general and useful tips for fellow nurses.

Highlight: What is Research Nursing and How Can You Make it Your Career?

30. JParadisi RN’s Blog is an eclectic blog that ties in science, art, and humanity to the profession of nursing, viewing the field through a variety of unique perspectives.

Highlight: Lessons About Medication Errors From Baseball