About Melissa Franklin

Throughout my career, I've worked as an RN in emergency departments (both inner-city and rural), intensive care, chemical dependency and telephone triage, and as an RN/Paramedic on a helicopter. In the early 80s, I worked briefly in northwest Florida as a commercially-rated (single-engine land) forestry pilot, spotting forest fires from the air then guiding the ground crew as they battled the flames. During my brief hiatus from nursing in the mid-90s, I worked in real estate, usually as an agent for the buyer.

For the past two years, I have been unable to work in a clinical setting as an RN due to a disease that was recently diagnosed by neurologists in Houston, Texas (one of whom had participated in studies on the disease at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland) with a disease called 'Stiffman Syndrome'. Over the years, SMS has been politically corrected to 'stiff person syndrome', of course. SMS has been a blessing in more ways than I can count. In short, this challenge has broadened my horizons over the past three years rather than the opposite. When physical or emotional challenges hit, one has a choice: accept and learn the spiritual lesson involved, and become empowered by the experience, or take on the role of the powerless "victim". I choose empowerment.

In August of 1996, after working a particularly dangerous short-term contract, I became active in an online nursing email list called NurseNet. On NurseNet, I found other nurses who were also concerned with the direction health care was taking, including the erosion of the nursing profession. A year later, in August of 1997, several NurseNetters formed an organization for nurses called 'The Florence Project.' I was the first national president of The Florence Project, the original developer and webmaster for the organization's website, handled the incorporation for the project with an attorney I located in my hometown, and, in addition, acted as Florida state coordinator for the project. In mid-May, 1998, I resigned as president for health reasons. At the time, I chose to remain webmaster and a board member of the project, as well as coordinator for the state of Florida. On June 22, 1998, due to major philosophical differences with the FP's board of directors, I resigned as both board member and webmaster of the organization. However, I remained coordinator for the state of Florida.

On July 17, 1998, at the request of nurses who wanted a network for nursing activists that was neither repressive nor exclusive, had an uncensored email list and was open to all nurses who wished to participate, Peter Ramme and I co-founded The Nightingale Network. It was not intended to compete with the Florence Project, but to remain an informal, open network for all nurses and the public. Apparently the BOD of the FP assumed we started it to compete with the FP. The original NNet was to be an alternative means of activism for the nurses who had difficulty accepting the corporate structure of the Florence Project. At the time, we envisioned working together on projects---similar to different political parties seeking similar goals that would be beneficial for all.

In August of 1998, during one of the worst episodes of nurse abuse to which I've been subjected in my 20-year nursing career, the board of directors of the Florence Project, many of whom I had mentored throughout the previous year, voted to terminate my membership in the organization I had been instrumental in founding. This decision was made by the board because I refused to dismantle an uncensored email list I had set up for Florida nurses. The board had recently decided to censor the national Florence Project list (which remains censored for content to this day), and, as state coordinator for Florida, I wanted the nurses in Florida to have a list that was not censored in any manner. Florida nurses are legitimately afraid, in many cases, to speak out, and censoring the list for content would have increased that fear and intimidation, in my opinion.

All attempts to approach or work with the Florence Project on any project, legislative or otherwise, have been ignored or rebuffed by its board of directors. In my opinion, this is just another sad example of the attitude displayed by the nurses in our profession who, consciously or unconsciously, tend to increase divisiveness and fragmentation in our profession rather than promote true unity of our profession. Although we encourage our members to be members of as many activist organizations as possible, including the Florence Project, the attitude of the current board of directors of the Florence Project is reportedly not the same.

My other professional affiliations include the Florida Nurses Association and the American Nurses Association, but after reading the May/June 1999 edition of "The American Nurse", I plan to resign from the ANA. I will remain a member of the FNA. I am a member of the Nurses Network for a National Health Care Program, and a supporter of both the Physicians for a National Healthcare Plan and the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care. I am a former member of the National Nurses in Business Association, and editor of _Nurses Empowering Nurses_, a brand new online magazine for nurses that, in time, will combine the best of two nursing magazines that have ended during the past year: _Revolution, the Journal of Nurse Empowerment_ and the _Journal for Nursing Jocularity_. In May of 1998, I attended the Speaker's Training Session in Boston, Massachusetts, sponsored by the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care. During that weekend, I represented The Florence Project as its national president at the annual conference of the Physicians for a National Healthcare Plan.

Throughout my years as an RN, I experienced many episodes of what has come to be called 'administrative violence.' Administrative violence can be defined as any behavior on the part of those in administrative positions that results in a dehumanization and degradation of their employees. Administrative violence eventually either breaks the spirit of those who continue to work in such environments or causes those who have been subjected to the tyranny to leave that specific work environment totally, either voluntarily or by being fired.

My last experience with administrative violence: Another nurse and I live over 100 miles from the hospital in which we had been working as a critical care agency nurses, Bay Medical Center in Panama City, Florida. One evening last August, after two days of orientation, we were scheduled to work 7pm-7am, and, for compelling reasons, would not be able to leave Pensacola until approximately 4 pm. When we awoke that morning, we received the news that a hurricane was headed our way. Hurricane Earl was expected to make landfall somewhere not far from Panama City. We called in early to let them know that we would probably not be able to make the trip, since we wouldn't be able to leave until later that day. The staffing director called our agency back and left word for us to "get our butts over there somehow." As the day wore on, hurricane warnings were posted for the area---directly along the route we would have been required to travel! Our agency called the hospital at approximately 3:00 pm to let them know we would not be able to make the 100-mile trip along the coastline due to the hurricane warnings. Hurricane Earl made landfall at approximately 8:00 pm in Panama City, Florida---the city in which we were scheduled to work. The next morning, not only were our our individual contracts canceled, but the agency's entire contract was canceled.

Many of you have experienced similar administrative violence, as well as abuse of nurses in general. It is only through sharing our experiences and strengths that we can overcome the effects the violence has had on our professional and personal lives. It is through well-focused individual and collective interaction and action such as collective bargaining through the development of professional unions for nurses that healing and empowerment will come.

I invite all nurses who choose activism over apathy---empowerment over powerlessness---to join us in the Nightingale Network.