Newswise — NURSES ON ALERT: A natural disaster that hit St. Louis that caused extended electrical power outage reinforced lessons from Hurricane Katrina, says Dotti James, Ph.D., associate professor of nursing at Saint Louis University's Doisy College of Health Sciences. Although local nurses were willing to help during the crisis, some could not because they were victims of the disaster.
"They are part of the sandwich generation and had to juggle personal responsibilities such as caring for elderly parents who were in poor health. They would have needed a support system to drop everything and help during the crisis."
Fortunately, James says, nurses from Kansas City took buses to St. Louis to lend a hand, which is similar to the pitch-in attitude shown by nurses across the country during Hurricane Katrina. James is coauthor of a book that prepares nurses to take a leadership role when disaster strikes.
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