Archive for June, 2009

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Readers Send Thanks and Praise for Diana Mason, AJN’s Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

June 24, 2009

Below are some excerpts from the many reader comments we’ve had in response to Diana Mason’s farewell post as editor-in-chief of AJN (you can read them all when you click on the original post). Diana is currently traveling in Africa and will be sending us posts in her new role as editor-in-chief emeritus. Her lastest just came in from South Africa and will go up tomorrow.

For years now, I’ve read your editorials as I’ve walked from my mailbox to my house. I applaud you for being direct and articulate in saying what’s on your mind. You’ve been a visionary leader for AJN and I wish you all the best.

You are an inspiration to nurses everywhere. I deeply respect your thoughtful and creative ideas and the vison through which you’ve guided AJN. . . .

Thank you for your remarkable leadership at AJN. This journal has played a powerful role in the life of American nursing for over 100 years and your efforts saw it become it’s most influential. . . .

Thank you Diana for your outstanding leadership at AJN. You have made such an important contribution to promoting quality nursing care of older adults. . . .

You exemplify the editorial heritage of this very special journal–strong, intelligent women with visions of nursing beyond those of their times. . . .

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Posted in Diana Mason, editor-in-chief emeritus | Leave a Comment »

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Photo-essay from Vancouver: Street Nursing as ‘Harm Reduction’

June 24, 2009

StreetNurseCoverScreenshot2
“Injection drug users say they often encounter discrimination in mainstream care settings; many delay seeking care until they’re extremely ill, at which point their care can be very costly, and that affects everyone. Indeed, any unsafe behavior (such as needle sharing) that raises the rate of bloodborne infection has significant consequences for individuals, communities, and overall public health. Many believe that improved community care that includes harm reduction measures can reduce rates of ED use, hospitalization, incarceration, and public drug use.”

Read the article, with text by Fiona Gold, BA, RN, and photos by Nettie Wild (it’s a fairly large PDF; if you have a slow connection, you can open the less attractive HTML version instead). And listen here to a podcast interview with Fiona Gold (it also may take a moment to download).

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Posted in audio interviews | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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The Art of the Possible: AJN Meets with Rose Hoban, Journalist and Former Nurse

June 23, 2009
Rose Hoban, health care journalist, at AJN offices in NYC

Rose Hoban, health care journalist, at AJN offices in NYC

AJN editors met yesterday for lunch with the health care journalist Rose Hoban, who currently works for North Carolina Public Radio (WUNC). She worked for 10 years as a nurse, has a degree in (and a passion for) public health, and has done some powerful stories of late on global health issues—including one she described to us, wrenching details included, about reproductive health issues in Zambia (here’s a page where you can listen to the story).

Here’s a site at which Hoban vividly narrates, with photos, her journalistic work in Africa. In person, she’s sharp, funny, compassionate, and interested not just in global public health issues but in public health issues here in the United States. She used to work for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, of which she says that “most of the projects are, on many levels, run by nurses” (partly, she says, to keep specialist physicians free to practice their specialties).

About nursing education in the U.S., Hoban has this to say: “My biggest problem with nursing education in the U.S. is that so much is drummed into you about what you cannot do.”

Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

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Posted in health care reform, international nursing, writing and nursing | 1 Comment »

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Two Sons Follow Father Into Nursing

June 22, 2009

What do friends and family say about a family of three male nurses? Zach said, “The reaction is always positive, but people do find it interesting.” Sam added, “People are initially surprised but it has been very well accepted.”

Maybe the real news here is that this is still seen as news!

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Posted in male nurses, media depictions of nursing | 2 Comments »

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Hawthorne: Strong Drama, Plus a Spotlight on the Nurse–Doctor Relationship

June 19, 2009


As this blog noted earlier in the week, Nurse Hawthorne is no Nurse Jackie. Take away Jackie’s drug addiction, stealing, and forgery, and you’re left with Hawthorne, a nurse I would definitely want taking care of me. Jada Pinkett Smith, playing Christina Hawthorne in TNT’s premiere new summer drama, HawthoRNe, brilliantly portrays everyday nurses as they are: caring, affectionate, courageous, and smart. She’s one version of that “great lead nurse character” that Diana Mason, AJN editor-in-chief emeritus, has suggested we need. (Click the video above for a preview of episode two.) Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in male nurses, media depictions of nursing | 2 Comments »

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Is Your Nurse a She, a He, or a They?

June 18, 2009
"What’s in a name?. . . "/Jack Dorsey, via Flickr

"What's in a name? . . . "/Jack Dorsey, via Flickr

A writer must always remember to cross his eyes and dot his tees, unless, of course, he happens to be a she.

One of the style conundrums that have plagued the AJN editorial staff over the years is what to do with personal pronouns (he, she, her, him, his, hers), especially when we’re referring to nurses. When we’re writing about the nurse in general, the generic nurse, as it were, do we use “she” or “he”? Arguments have been made for both. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in male nurses, professional identity, writing and nursing | 4 Comments »

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Nurses and Doctors in Iran Protest Police Brutality

June 17, 2009

Here’s a June 16 YouTube video that apparently shows outraged nurses and physicians in Tehran protesting police brutality against protesters. The courage this must take is hard to imagine, even if nothing terrible happens in the video. One prominent blog  linking to the video includes this translation from a reader:

One woman (maybe a nurse) shows a sign which says 8 people were martyred here last night. Toward the end of the clip the young man (whose voice breaks down many times) is saying that he witnessed the brutal beating of women and children and wonders who these brutish forces are . . .

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Posted in ethical issues, human rights, international nursing, nursing perspective, videos | 1 Comment »

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Do Male Nurses Face Reverse Sexism?

June 16, 2009
Army medic awarded Distinguished Service Cross.

Army medic receiving Distinguished Service Cross

A recent blog entry at the Boston Globe asks: “Should you let a male nurse deliver your baby?” No wonder men still aren’t joining the profession in droves. According to ”Men, Medics, and Nursing,” the Viewpoint essay in the June issue of AJN, 

The proportion of women in medicine has been profoundly altered in the past generation, but not so that of men in nursing. The 2004 federal survey of the RN population found that only 5.8% of RNs were men. This results from the profession’s use of caring philosophies that perpetuate the stereotype of women being more caring than men, as well as from the use of language that isn’t gender neutral and the failure to recruit men. As a member of an undergraduate admissions committee, I see an unconscious preference being given to younger women applicants to nursing programs, with recruiting efforts being directed primarily at undergraduate women.

The author, an associate professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina, makes a good case that the training for medics in the U.S. military is as good or better than that found in many associate’s degree nursing programs; veterans who have been trained as medics, he argues, could be used to alleviate the nursing shortage. Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in male nurses, media depictions of nursing, nursing shortage | Tagged , , | 12 Comments »

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‘Hawthorne’ versus ‘Nurse Jackie’?

June 16, 2009

We’ve already posted about Showtime’s controversial new drama, Nurse Jackie. When it rains it pours: Hawthorne, TNT’s new series starring Jada Pinkett Smith as a chief nursing officer, starts tonight (click the above image for a look at the first episode preview) and is already getting attention from nurse bloggers, like Kim over at Emergiblog. People are sure to pit Edie Falco’s Jackie character against Smith’s Hawthorne character. So let us know: is there anything to be gained from comparing the nurse characters in the two shows, or do they exist in parallel TV universes that could never collide?

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Posted in media depictions of nursing | 7 Comments »

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When Poor Oral Care Causes Death

June 15, 2009
asphyxiaAJN2

AJN's June feature article

“Take care of your teeth”—it’s something we’re told as soon as we’re old enough to hold a toothbrush. But it’s not so straightforward for the nursing personnel who provide oral care in nursing homes. According to a 2000 Surgeon General report on oral health,  “Mouth care is often considered an unpleasant task and is often delegated to nursing auxiliaries, who have even less oral health training than registered nursing staff.”

This month AJN features a case study of a patient that proves this point.  A severely disabled man received such poor oral care from nursing home personnel that his oral and nasopharyngeal secretions built up (“inspissated”), and he died from asphyxia. The lead author, Joseph A. Prahlow, was the pathologist in charge of the autopsy; the article features graphic photos of the thickened secretions that blocked his airway. A companion article by two dentists, Pamela S. Stein and Robert G. Henry, gives nurses suggestions Read the rest of this entry ?

Posted in nursing perspective | 1 Comment »

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