Nursing

A story about nursing earning the top spot as the most trusted profession in the U.S. was Becker's most-read nursing story this year.

Maryland health systems are again tapping nursing students to help out on the COVID-19 frontlines amid a surge in hospitalizations, reports The Washington Post. 

California is currently the only state with a nurse-to-patient ratio law, but a spike in COVID-19 patients led Gov. Gavin Newsom to relax the law earlier this month. Now, nurses are scrambling to care for more patients, reports NPR. 

This year has put nursing leaders to the test as they have worked to set up makeshift COVID-19 units, secure personal protective equipment for their teams and provide emotional support during some of the hardest moments of many nurses' careers.

Americans rated nurses as the most honest and ethical professionals for the 19th consecutive year, according to an annual Gallup poll. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating a national nurse shortage, with many universities struggling to keep up with the growing demand for nurses, reports NPR and The Hechinger Report. 

Many nurses are expressing concern about conditions in New York hospitals amid a major surge in COVID-19 patients, reports The New York Times.

The Emergency Nurses Association said being vaccinated is "the world's way out of the pandemic," and encouraged all emergency nurses to get vaccinated in a Dec.15 news release. 

Sandra Lindsay, RN, a critical care nurse and intensive care unit director at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, became the first American to receive Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine Dec. 14, reports The New York Times.

In order to improve patient care and alleviate nurses from routine overtime, healthcare organizations and lawmakers need to correct staffing shortages, one nurse wrote in an op-ed published in The Columbus Dispatch.