“Patient dies, nurse cries.” That’s how we sometimes refer to the Reflections column, the personal essay about some aspect of health care that appears inside AJN’s back cover each month. It’s the kind of self-protective humor you develop at a nursing journal. We’re not making light of real pain. Often, in fact, we’re quite moved by submissions, both ones we accept for publication and ones we don’t. Nor is every Reflections actually about a patient dying or a nurse grieving. Most, probably, are not. […]