Categories: Scrubs

The one thing nurses shouldn’t put off

Thomas Northcut | Digital Vision | Thinkstock

As a nurse, it’s your nature to put others first: your patients, your family, your friends.

Well, before this year comes to an end and the new one is upon you, put yourself first for a while and spend some time making a plan—we’re talking about a health plan here—that will keep you from ignoring yourself any longer.

Here are some smart tips for nurses to develop a health plan.

1. Unless you already have the following scheduled, get cozy with your telephone for a few minutes and make these appointments for 2012:

A complete physical with your family physician (Ensure that he or she does or orders the recommended tests for your age.Â Medline Plus, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, offers excellent guidelines on what an annual physical exam should include, based on your age and gender.)
An eye exam with your optometrist
A check-up and cleaning with your dentist

Next: Get real with your weight â†’

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Cynthia Dusseault

Cynthia Dusseault is a professional freelance writer with both a health and an education background. A former medical radiation technologist and elementary school teacher, she realized that no matter what she did, she was drawn to any task that involved writing, so she decided, over a decade ago, to write full-time. Since then, she has written for a variety of magazines and websites including Nursing PRN, National Review of Medicine, University Affairs, Your Health, Education Leaders Today, Today's Parent, Children's Playmate, WeightWatchers.ca and many more. She has written about topics such as asthma, genital herpes, circumcision, teleradiology, body art, learning disabilities and exercise trends, and she absolutely adores the fact that writing—particularly doing the research for the articles she writes—makes her a lifelong learner.