“I received a very touching letter from a MS Clinical Nurse Specialist who works in the North of England stating that his/her main source of MS education is the Barts-MS Blog with an appeal for us not to close it down. They valued our ‘independent interpretation’ and frank discussion.
Two things:
(1) We may be independent, but we have conflicts of interest as declared. Conflicts may affect the way we present results and interpret them; please be aware of this.
(2) This blog is not really being run for CPD. We have therefore shared your letter with Amy Bowen from the MS Trust who has kindly agreed to do a guest post on MS Clinical Nurse specialist CPD. May be we should run formal CPD posts with and interactive feedback via the blog. We could potentially get these accredited. We want the blog to evolve so any suggestions would be helpful on the format, frequency, etc., of CPD sessions.”
I'm afraid I have had one very bad experience with an MS nurse in the past. I rang to discuss whether my Trigeminal Neuralgia was connected with my MS. I didn't know that the agonising facial pain I was experiencing was Trigeminal Neuralgia. I was assured by the nurse that it was nothing to do with my MS and that I should see my dentist. In general, the MS nurses at my (huge) local hospital are extremely hard to get hold of and give the impression of being massively overworked. I've realised from MS chat forums that some people have regular appointments with their MS nurse. That's never been offered to me, in any of the three hospitals where I've seen neurologists. I guess this is not how it's meant to be…
I've never had an MS Nurse, I thought they were like British fairy folk until I saw one at one of those terribad marketing dinners. It would be cool to know which nurses and neurologists did read the blog…
I've had MS for nearly 40 years only recently saw one and only because I accidently came across it on a major hospital Website whilst looking for something else.
I think its a wonderful idea!
I am surprised at the above comments. MS nurses are the absolute focal point of the MS service at our hospital, and are really as important as my neurologist in keeping me feeling shiny and new… I think this would be a good vector for CPD for nurses. I imagine the average MS nurse gets about 3 seconds free per annum to spend on CPD. The blog delivers concise, good quality data – perfectly relevant to an NHS setting – perfect, for a nurse, I would imagine.
Here's the thing I've noticed here across the pond. MS Nurses are far far more eager to learn than many. I've now met perhaps a dozen of them. Way way more eager to learn than often those employing them or even others in a ranked hierarchy.