UpGrace is my personal attempt to marry the fact that I am working in the field of nursing, yet I have a heart of a writer! The tropical attribute comes from the fact that I am a proudly Philippine-educated nurse. There is no wonder then why I have a very firm foundation on which I have built my almost three-decade nursing career.

And yes, I finally took that all too important first step – I am actually starting this blog! How exciting! I have been entertaining this idea for some time, but I didn’t really have the guts to just “go for it”- until today that is. So, yay! Happy dance for sure!

What is UpGrace, you ask? Please allow me to explain.

What does UpGrace mean?

UpGrace is an intentional play on two words: upgrade and grace. It is loosely derived from upgrade defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as an advancement. Grace, on the other hand, means ease of movement.

Advancing gracefully? That is actually a great concept in and of itself. However, this blog is a representation of myself, Grace, a nurse, who is constantly seeking opportunities to evolve.

Grace, Amazing Grace

I’ve silently worked as one of the invisible night shift nurses for so many years. Most parents of the children I took care of didn’t know my name. Whenever they called for updates, they always looked for “that Asian nurse with the long black hair.” With 60% of us meeting this description, identifying the correct nurse was challenging at times.

Because of this, I was inspired to give my name a recall value. I just started introducing myself as “Grace, Amazing Grace.” Sometimes I even sounded how Agent 007 said: “Bond, James Bond!” From then on, I have been known to be my department’s Amazing Grace.

As a nurse, I have worked in settings from the tomb to the womb. No, that is not a typo! Really, I meant it to read that way because my career trajectory started in geriatrics. I have been the assistant manager in a Medical-Surgical Oncology unit. A joyful short stint in the Mother-Baby unit followed. Then, I had the pleasure of taking care of kids in both the Pediatrics and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Finally, I took a leap of faith “upgrace” to informatics nursing. See what I did there?

Jack of All Nursing Trades, Master of None

That may be true in my case. The fact is I really don’t consider myself as a voice of authority in any particular niche of nursing. However, I firmly believe that I have enough experiences to share with you, my dear readers.         

Maybe, you are currently undergoing the same professional challenges as I have in the past. Some of you may be considering changing a specialization. Nevertheless, you are anxious to leave your comfort zone. Chances are, in my almost 30 years of nursing I may have gone through the same uphill battles one way or another.    

 

Why Will You Want to Read (and Follow) UpGrace?

If you are a nurse, particularly a foreign graduate nurse, then UpGrace is for you.

The main intention of this blog is to articulate the often silent voices of foreign nurses. You see, this special group of heroes left family and home to work abroad. Aside from making that difficult decision, we still have to adjust culturally, utilize unfamiliar technology, etc. 

Most of the time, we work at the bedside. We are uncomfortable sharing our ideas to improve our workflow. We inherently feel that our being foreign-educated is a disadvantage. For one, most of us speak with an accent. I know this to be true because I was called out for it. Sadly, this is not only prevalent among the nurses who are working in the States, but in other countries too.

If you are interested in my take regarding how to deal with these adjustment challenges, please click here.

It is this blog’s intention to cater to the needs of nurses regardless of their geographical location. Different perspectives from nurses working in other parts of the world will be sought. Each unique experience will surely inspire all of us. Maybe, we can even apply some of those to advance our own practice.

Of course, this will also benefit the local nurses. In a way, this will give them the opportunity to understand where the immigrant nurses are coming from. Appreciating similarities and differences among cultures will pave the way for a harmonious working relationship.

I envision UpGrace to be a weekly forum for a respectful exchange of ideas. As such, I will welcome questions and constructive feedback from all of you. We may not always see things the same way, but sharing different ideas is how we grow. I am an objective person, so I expect just facts!  Basically, it will be a venue where nurses lift up nurses. We all know that the world can use every bit of a bright spot especially during dark times such as this.

A Gen X Nurse Blogger?

Yes! I am a Gen X nurse and proud of it. No, not your typical blogger, but I will try to “go with the flow,” so to say!

 As a Gen Xer, I belong to a generation that is not quite ready to retire but not too new in the field either. Papandrea, in her 2017 article for nurse.org stated that Gen Xers are autonomous team players. She continued that, while we are not innately tech-savvy, we continue to learn about technology.

In fact, I am taking those attributes a notch higher. I am leveraging technology for the benefit of my not-so-tech-savvy contemporaries. Being in informatics has its own advantages, I guess.

Where do we go from here?

It is my fervent hope that UpGrace will grow to be a safe forum of nurses, for nurses, by nurses! Please feel free to ask questions, and share inputs. If you have a unique nursing story to share, I may even feature it as a guest post.

 As a nurse informaticist, I love the fact that we help nurses to work smarter not harder. UpGrace wants to be a small part of achieving that very lofty goal! Let’s start by taking that seat at the table, regardless of how innately culturally shy we may be.

Nursing: A Work in Progress

Although I had an old travel journal, this is my first serious foray into blogging. Just like nursing is ever dynamic, UpGrace will be as well. Any relevant changes will be communicated and shared with you as applicable.

Finally, I just want to reiterate that the ultimate goal of this blog is to empower nurses to consistently and gracefully improve one step at a time – in a word – UpGrace!

Welcome to UpGrace! I am glad and honored that I am sharing this journey with you!

UpGrace: A Tropically-Flavored Nursing Blog