Vickie Milazzo Profile and Articles

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1). Don't Wait for Hurricane Season to Find the True Meaning of Life
As the hurricane season looms and I think about the tragedy and devastation of the 2005 hurricane season, I can’t help but realize how much we take for granted.
It’s easy to appreciate life when things are going great. And as the distance of time separates me from the last hurricane season, I realize how easy it is to stop appreciating the simple and most important things in life – a drink of water, my husband’s smile.

2). Invite the Media to Tell Your Story
People often ask me how I managed to get a major newspaper like The New York Times to write my story. My response is, "Nineteen years of growing a successful business." You have to lay the groundwork before you can expect national media attention. The heavy hitters won't call you until your name is well known in your industry.
It took me 19 years to build the kind of professional presence that would attract the interest of a national media outlet like The New York Times.

3). Demand for Legal Nurse Consultants at All-Time High
What Is a Legal Nurse Consultant?

A legal nurse consultant is a registered nurse who uses existing expertise as a healthcare professional plus specialized training to consult on medical-related cases at fees of $100-$150/hour. Few attorneys know how to read medical records or understand the terminology and subtleties of healthcare issues to achieve the best results for their clients.

4). Mom: Get The Pay Raise You Deserve
The reality today is that even as women are making incredible achievements they’re still battling the stereotypical role of traditional wife and mother. Mom’s expected at home to make dinner and read bedtime stories, but the boss wants that report finished now. Does she disappoint her family and stay late, or tick off the boss and derail her career?
Yes, women can do anything—but they should NOT do everything.

5). Victory Dance Your Way to Success
On a trip to England my husband, Tom, and I visited Stratford-on-Avon, looking for the home of William Shakespeare. The historic center of town is small and easy to navigate. However, we couldn't find anything that even resembled Shakespeare's homestead. Resting against a wall, we opened our water bottles and looked once more at our map. At my insistence (since husbands don't ask for directions), we stopped a passing pedestrian.

6). The Good Years Are Still Ahead of You
Every woman who reaches mid-life – that halfway stop where dreams have been either realized or abandoned – looks around and wonders, “What’s next?” The kids are grown, the career is schlepping along and you wake up each day feeling just a little bit lost. What happened to the life you imagined when you were twenty-one, with all those years ahead of you? The good news: they’re still ahead of you.

7). You Have to Be First at the River to Get a Drink
While on vacation in the Serengeti Plains of Africa, I sat on a riverbank for three hours watching a herd of wildebeest (or gnu) build up the courage to drink from the water. This herd was part of the Great Migration that happens like clockwork every summer. More than 1,000,000 wildebeest move northward from the arid Serengeti into the wetlands of the Masai Mara.

8). 12 Things Nursing Taught Me About Owning a Business
Have you ever wondered whether you're cut out to be an entrepreneur? Nurses sometimes tell me they aren't sure if their nursing career has prepared them to start and succeed in their own legal nurse consultant practice. Yet even the most routine nursing job is full of life lessons that apply to the business world.
My first job as an intensive care nurse in a major medical center prepared me for business success.

9). Why Are Nurses Leaving Clinical Nursing? Not Because of ER!
A couple of years ago, Baltimore's Center for Nursing Advocacy started a letter-writing campaign against NBC and the producers of ER. This group was protesting the episode where a central character, nurse Abby Lockhart (actress Maura Tierney), chucked her nursing career to go to medical school. The Baltimore group claims the TV show "is perpetuating long-standing misrepresentations that are contributing to the nursing shortage.

10). Build Monuments to Your Future
On my recent trip to Cambodia I was blessed to spend three days exploring the ruins collectively known as Angkor Wat. We experienced sunrise and sunset, as well as the noonday heat, in this magnificent complex of temples, many built more than 900 years ago.
Relics of Past Splendor
These shrines were created with stones carried from far away; many were built without mortar, and all were built without modern technology.

11). Graceful Chaos
I was recently stuck on a curb in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (everyone there still calls it Saigon). My objective, a restaurant where my husband and my lunch awaited me, stood on the opposite side of the street. I could see the food, smell it and, if you know me, you'll realize I had built up quite an appetite.
Stranded in the Chaos
The only barrier between me and my lunch was crossing the street.

12). 32 Services Provided By a Legal Nurse Consultant
Legal nurse consultants apply their knowledge and understanding of medical, nursing and health-related issues to make the attorney's job easier, more efficient and more effective.
Legal nurse consultants are medical insiders who know the inner workings of our complicated healthcare system firsthand. Their professional expertise as an RN and a legal.

13). Can You Remove Your Own Burrs?
On a trip to Africa I went hiking with my friend, Colin, on his ranch in Kenya. The trail varied between rock and brush. Colin's dog, Uzuri, came with us, sometimes running ahead of us, sometimes following behind, but almost never on the trail. Well into the hike we encountered a section of trail infested with burrs. Soon Uzuri came up next to me. She was limping on three legs, obviously having picked up a burr.

14). How to Break the Feel-Good Addiction to Enhance Your Career
How does a busy professional like yourself cope with the mounting demands and pressures of career and everyday life and still achieve success?
Whether you are a beginner just starting your career or a tenured executive with many years of success, the key to achieving BIG is breaking the "feel-good" addiction.
The feel-good addiction is an addiction to the small, easy "feel-good" tasks that bombard us every day – sorting the mail, answering email, checking voicemail and straightening, organizing and reorganizing.