OrganizedWisdom Health Blog

Featured Nurses, Part 6

These nurses are educators, whether they are helping patients, teaching classes, or coaching nurse clients. View their OrganizedWisdom profiles below:

• @Babs637 Barbara Black, RN, is a nurse practitioner and associate professor and director of the Center for Continuing Nursing Education at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. She has given poster presentations at nursing conferences and has successfully helped the College of Nursing receive grants over the years. She also calls herself a “political junkie, 18-holer, foodie” and proud mom and grandmother “of very cool people.”


• @shiftchangecoac Betsy Smith, PhD, and Merrily Sable, RN, BSN, are life/business coaches who began Shift Change Coaching Group, which “works with nurses and organizations to build a strong foundation for excellence and fulfillment in the nursing profession.” Smith has worked as an educator and supervised 19 health-related programs, along with the traditional academic curriculum, as provost of the Health-Related Campus at Pensacola Junior College. She led a fund-raising initiative that raised enough money to build a state-of-the-art health education facility at the school. Sable has extensive nursing experience, including hospital labor and delivery, special care nursery, and hospital pediatric units. She also worked to help identify fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program. 


• @LuvenRN Carolyn Newstrom, RN, has been a registered nurse since 1983. Her background includes ICU/CCU and Ambulatory Care. She is now the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) grant coordinator for the Health Workforce Initiative, South Coast Region. The particular WIA grant she coordinates is the Nurse Education Initiative. As NEI/WIA grant coordinator, her goal, together with that of many deans and nursing program directors in her region, is to expand the capacity of current nursing programs, thereby increasing the number of nurses in the workforce. A resident of Santa Barbara, California, she is “interested in learning from the past and from the present in order to create a better future.”


• @Christina1973 Christina Feak, RN, BSN, CNOR, is director of clinical informatics at Onslow Memorial Hospital in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Previously an operating room nurse, she admits to “leading a double life” during those years by spending her evenings exploring the online world and discovering a passion for computer technology. She eventually taught computer skills in an online college and hosted medical chats for several Web sites. 


• @Salemrn Darrow Hanks, RN, works in the inpatient oncology floor of a hospital in upstate New York. He blogs about his family of five, starting off with an adoption journey.

If you know of nurses who are worthy of attention on these pages, please tweet your recommendation to @organizedwisdom in this format: “I recommend @[username] as a top nurse for @OrganizedWisdom,” or use our contact form.

Other blog entries featuring patient experts or health professionals:

Featured Obstetrician-Gynecologists, Part 1
Featured Chiropractors, Part 1
Featured Neurologists, Part 1
Featured Cardiologists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Dietitians, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Featured Nutritionists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Nurses, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Featured Nurses, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Featured Oncologists, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Top Nephrologists on Twitter
Top Gastroenterologists on Twitter 
Gluten-Free Diet Feature 
Type 1 Diabetes Patient Experts, Part 1, Part 2 

By Julie Bohlen, MBA-HCM, ELS

OrganizedWisdom is Hiring Online Ad Sales Executives

If you're an exceptional sales person (or know others) based in New York or Philly and are interested in joining the OrganizedWisdom team, give us a shout...We're hiring! Click for details.

Featured Nurses, Part 5

For help getting information about COPD, we have an RN for that. If you want to hear some stories from a state psychiatric ward, we have a nurse for that. And more. View their OrganizedWisdom profiles below:

• @AboutCOPD Deborah Leader, RN, is a COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) expert and freelance medical journalist who writes for About.com. Her work in hospital settings has been in medical-surgical and cardiac intensive care units. She currently is a clinical supervisor for a home health agency. She has extensive experience mentoring nursing students. “Interacting with patients is the best part of my job,” she writes. “To be able to hold someone’s hand during their most vulnerable moment and show them that you care, is a feeling unsurpassed by no other.”


• @angelabrooks Angela Brooks has worked in a state-funded psychiatric hospital in Kentucky for 21 years as a nurse, assisting sometimes-dangerous patients who come in shackled and cuffed. As her bio reads, “This power-packed woman is able to release peace into a chaotic environment.” At AngelaBrook.com, she offers stories of life on the inside of a psychiatric ward, and the site, as well as her company, offers support for nurses in the mental health field and helps them bring passion into their role at work. On her BlogTalkRadio show, Mental Happiness with Angela Brooks, she shares some of her experiences “learning to love those others have forsaken” and gives tips on how to bring peace to your own life.


• @alana_ngo Alana Ngo, RN, is a recent graduate with undergraduate clinical experience in long-term care, maternity, pediatrics, surgical units, psychiatric units, and ICUs. She currently volunteers in the emergency center of a hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She loves learning and is “looking forward to build my career and accomplish my goals.”


• @mcgaula Amanda McGauley, RN, is clinical supervisor at Great Lakes Home Health and Hospice in Lansing, Michigan. She’s a BSN student and “future orthopaedic surgeon.”


• @nursemidwife Angel J. Miller, MSN, is a certified nurse-midwife specializing in health and wellness and personalized nutrition. She opened a nurse-midwifery practice in Ohio in 2002, providing obstetrical and gynecological care, that was sold to a hospital six years later; “The Women’s Center” there continues to provide midwifery services. She now provides midwifery care in Maryland and professional support through education, programs, and services offered at WomanPlace.com.

If you know of nurses who are worthy of attention on these pages, please tweet your recommendation to @organizedwisdom in this format: “I recommend @[username] as a top nurse for @OrganizedWisdom,” or use our contact form.

Other blog entries featuring patient experts or health professionals:

Featured Obstetrician-Gynecologists, Part 1
Featured Chiropractors, Part 1
Featured Neurologists, Part 1
Featured Cardiologists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Dietitians, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Featured Nutritionists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Nurses, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Featured Nurses, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Featured Oncologists, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Top Nephrologists on Twitter
Top Gastroenterologists on Twitter 
Gluten-Free Diet Feature 
Type 1 Diabetes Patient Experts, Part 1, Part 2 

By Julie Bohlen, MBA-HCM, ELS

Sharing the OrganizedWisdom Vision at Ingenuity 2010: A New Way To Help People Solve Health Problems

Last week OrganizedWisdom co-founder Steven Krein presented our story to the NYVCA Ingenuity Conference in New York City. We've shared the video below which is just over 8 minutes long.

For those of you who have followed us for awhile, you know we have a big vision for OrganizedWisdom. We used this opportunity to share why we created OrganizedWisdom in the first place and I think Steve did a great job of capturing the passion and energy that all of us on the team feel about our mission.

Even though we've been working on building our service for over 3 years, we feel we are very much just getting started. We've built a profitable company with an amazing technology platform, have over 5,000 experts in our network, and a service that over a million people are using every month, but we are most excited about where we are going and what we are building.   

Creating a better way for people to use the Internet for their health is not easy but it is something our team truly cares about. Frankly our belief is that in 2010 we should expect more from the Internet.  We should be able to use the Internet to get access to more than health encyclopedias or leave people to fend for themselves with blank search boxes controlled by computer algorithms.

Our plan is to change this paradigm forever.

How are we doing this? 

Experts. 

With something as important as health we believe people need to be able to tap into the wisdom of doctors, nurses, advocates, researchers, thought leaders, etc. We are hard at work building what we call the Expert Health Graph for the Internet which we believe is an essential missing layer to be added to content, search and social.  We already have more than 5,000 experts who are helping filter, organize and guide people to better health resources. But we want everyone to be able to tap into this network when they need to.

If you want to help with our mission to create a new way for people to solve their health problems using the Internet, contact us.  Nominate experts you think we should invite to our community.  If you're an expert who loves helping others, apply to become an Expert Curator. Or if you want to get involved in some other way, please let us know...

Featured Nurses, Part 4

These nurses have been actively working in the field for a long time, whether it pertains to childbirth, wellness, education, legal issues, or men’s nursing. View their OrganizedWisdom profiles below:

1. @Nerdnurse Carole Eldridge, DNP, RN, NEA-BC is the dean of nursing at Chamberlain College of Nursing in Houston. Her Web site, NerdNurse.com, explores different technologies for educating nurses. She has started and operated several Medicare and private duty home health agencies, a hospice, a medical equipment company, and a health care publishing company and has written more than 60 training publications for unlicensed attendants in long-term care. Dr Eldridge is also a founding board member of the Global Technology Nurses Association.


2. @CindyCohen Cindy Cohen, RN, has 35 years of experience in outpatient clinics, home health care administration, inpatient hospital management, and project management. “I love everything health, wellness, [and] nutrition,” and she is a health coach, wellness educator, and medical advocate. She created C2 Your Health, a health and wellness company, and maintains a business networking site.


3. @jurisrn Claire Hull, RN, has 23 years of nursing experience in the cardiac, orthopedic, and surgical specialties as well as providing nursing services to home-bound patients. She is a certified case manager and a certified legal nurse consultant, with significant experience in medical case review. She formed Juris Educational Resource Knowledge for Legal Nurse Consulting (aka The J.E.R.K. LNC) as a forum for legal nurses.


4. @birthsourcecom Connie Livingston, RN, has been a childbirth educator for nearly 30 years and has worked with expectant families in a variety of settings around the country. She has written more than 800 articles and two books for parents and professionals and is a frequent speaker. Her Web site, TheBirthFacts.com, is designed to give readers up-to-date, unbiased, evidence-based childbirth information. Her BirthSource.com Web site, provides educational materials for birth professionals and her Childbirth Today blog is very well done. In a childbirth education class she taught, one of the expectant parents called her the “Labor Whisperer,” and she has since trademarked that name. 


5. @DalePfrimmer Dale Pfrimmer, MS, RN, is nurse administrator at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. In 2008, he accepted an award given to Mayo for Best Workplace for Men in Nursing, by the American Assembly for Men in Nursing. He is on the Government Affairs Committee of the Minnesota Organization of Leaders in Nursing.

If you know of nurses who are worthy of attention on these pages, please tweet your recommendation to @organizedwisdom in this format: “I recommend @[username] as a top nurse for @OrganizedWisdom,” or use our contact form.

Other blog entries featuring patient experts or health professionals:

Featured Obstetrician-Gynecologists, Part 1
Featured Chiropractors, Part 1
Featured Neurologists, Part 1
Featured Cardiologists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Dietitians, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Featured Nutritionists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Nurses, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Featured Nurses, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Featured Oncologists, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Top Nephrologists on Twitter
Top Gastroenterologists on Twitter 
Gluten-Free Diet Feature 
Type 1 Diabetes Patient Experts, Part 1, Part 2 


By Julie Bohlen, MBA-HCM, ELS

Featured Nurses, Part 3

From radio show hosting to authoring books and blogs, these nurses have taken different paths to help and educate the public. View their OrganizedWisdom profiles below:

1. @SafetyNurse Barbara Olson, MS, RN, is a “nurse with an engineer’s mind … interested in how and why ‘stuff works.’” She has been a staff nurse, clinician, educator, and project manager, and she has served as an advisor or consultant to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) as well as a clinical reviewer for ISMP publications. She writes about improving medication and patient safety in her personal blog, named after Florence Nightingale, and on Medscape.


2. @BarbaraFicarra Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA, speaker, media broadcaster, and health expert is the creator, host, and executive producer of the Health in 30 Radio Show, a half-hour program bringing listeners the latest health and medical news and information with leading medical experts. Discussions focus on education, prevention, and patient advocacy. She is head nurse at a level 2 trauma center and covers multiple medical and surgical units, and her clinical experience ranges from oncology to general medicine and surgery. She is also an award-winning journalist, writes for The Huffington Post, and blogs at HealthIn30.com as well as HealthCommentary.org. Barbara is also on the editorial advisory board and a health educator at Sharecare. 


3. @BonnieRN Bonnie Kavanagh, RN-BC, CMC, CLNC, is a nurse consultant with an independent practice in Grand Junction, Colorado, serving adults with disabilities and geriatric clients in care management. Her business, Kavanagh Consultants, provides local and nationwide services by a team of nurses, social workers, and counselors. At her blog, BonnieRN.com, she writes, “I am proud to call myself a registered nurse, a mother, an advocate for those who have that need, [and] a proponent of living a healthy lifestyle.”


4. @BonnieMarting Bonnie Marting, DNP, ARNP, is a Palm Beach, Florida, skin care “practitioner to the stars.” Her career began in critical care nursing but moved to cosmetic dermatology in the 1990s. She has worked in cosmetic medical training and wrote skin care training manuals for medical professionals that became accredited courses in their respective fields. Her current book, Skin Secrets Doctors Save for Celebrities, discusses how and why skin ages and what we can do to slow down or even reverse aging skin; it’s available at her Web site, YearsErased.com.


5. @JetWithAnya Anya Clowers, RN, is a California-based nurse, consultant, speaker, and “child-safety and parent-sanity advocate.” A travel expert, she “understands the complexities of traveling with kids,” and to that end, she wrote Jet with Kids, sells “flight kits” for parents, and writes a blog on the subject. She is also a liaison between medical experts and the travel industry and offers practical solutions for travelers dealing with illness, discomfort, irritation, or fear. As a postsurgical specialist, she worked as a registered nurse at Mayo Clinical Medical Center and Stanford University Hospital.

If you know of nurses who are worthy of attention on these pages, please tweet your recommendation to @organizedwisdom in this format: “I recommend @[username] as a top nurse for @OrganizedWisdom,” or use our contact form.

Other blog entries featuring patient experts or health professionals:

Featured Obstetrician-Gynecologists, Part 1
Featured Chiropractors, Part 1
Featured Neurologists, Part 1
Featured Cardiologists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Dietitians, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Featured Nutritionists, Part 1, Part 2
Featured Nurses, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Featured Nurses, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Featured Oncologists, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Top Nephrologists on Twitter
Top Gastroenterologists on Twitter 
Gluten-Free Diet Feature 
Type 1 Diabetes Patient Experts, Part 1, Part 2 

By Julie Bohlen, MBA-HCM, ELS