Marie Manthey’s Nursing Salon

I have always wondered what would happen if salons all over the county were touching the heart of nursing.  It looks like I am beginning to find out. Over the weekend, I received this email from Dawn, a nurse in Virginia.

I just wanted to let you know how you have inspired me. I read your article on the Nursing Salon and have since started a nursing salon of my own at hospital. Our salon is a combination book club/discussion group. We read a book and then meet for “lively conversation” and refreshments!  We have read Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing (we used several of your articles and interviews to support the reading and supplement the discussion) and we just finished Suzanne Gordon’s Nursing Against the Odds. The Nursing Salon is fully funded (I applied for a Nursing Morale Grant and was awarded $1,000 from our health system) and so there is absolutely no cost to the participants. We have increased in numbers since beginning in May and presently average 20 participants each month. Thank you so much for all you have contributed (and continue to contribute) to the profession; you are an inspiration to us all.

Dawn, thank you so much, both for your kind words and for starting another salon. I hope your inspire others.

When I first read Code Green, I was sort of heartbroken. It was a book about people I knew and respected tremendously and hospitals I considered among the best in the country from a nursing practice point of view. So I was disheartened. Then I found out about changes at the very top and a refocusing of the facility. I was given the opportunity to conduct rather lengthy interviews with the new CEO and CNO, and my feeling of devastation was greatly relieved. Although the culture changes required in order to merge these two great places was enormous, the new leaders were able to go to the staff for answers about how to improve the situation. Their process and the subsequent turnaround are reported in Creative Nursing a journal published by Creative Health Care Management. You can find a .pdf of that issue here. (And interesting historical note: this issue is also the first published reference to the Nursing Salon in my home.) So, if you didn’t include this latter piece in your book club, it would be helpful to the members of the salon to make this available.

Please keep my blog updated on your salon activities. The same goes for everyone else.  Let me know what you are doing. If this idea takes hold, there might be a regular section of the blog devoted to Salon Notes.