July 2011 - Off the Charts

Caught in the Crossfire: The Debt Crisis and a Child’s Shooting in the Bronx

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief—The one good thing about commuting into Manhattan is that I have plenty of time to listen to the news on the radio. This morning, there were two stories that topped local news and gave me food for thought while I negotiated traffic.

One, of course, is the current debacle in Congress over passing a bill to raise the debt ceiling, a necessary move to prevent the country from defaulting on payments. It was expected that a bill put forth by Republicans would have been passed in the House of Representatives on Thursday evening, but Speaker John Boehner did not put the bill forward because he couldn’t garner enough votes from a handful of conservative Republican colleagues who feel the bill doesn’t go far enough in limiting spending and are therefore unwilling to compromise.

What’s ridiculous about all the posturing around this bill is that if it passes in the House, the Democrats in the Senate have already said they will vote it down. So the Republican holdouts aren’t about outcomes, but about appearances. And it’s wasting time we don’t have. As everyone knows by now, a solution needs to happen by August 2. The financial markets have been showing the stress for the last five days (and if you think it doesn’t pertain to you, think retirement accounts, college funds, etc).

And it’s not just the U.S. financial markets—markets around the world are down. […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:12:20-05:00July 29th, 2011|nursing perspective|1 Comment

Getting Osteoarthritis on Nurses’ Radar

Many providers and patients alike feel arthritis is inevitable and there’s nothing that can be done aside from taking pain medication—but that’s wrong. There are measures that can slow progression and make joint replacement a less inevitable outcome. The key is getting patients on regimens early on, before there is significant damage in the joint.

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:12:21-05:00July 27th, 2011|nursing perspective|0 Comments

Don’t Cling to Tradition: A Nursing Student’s Call for Realism, Respect

By Medora McGinnis. Medora is a student at Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing in Richmond, Virginia, and the 2011-2012 Imprint Editor of the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA). This is her first post for this blog.

There was a time when the majority of all nursing programs were diploma programs, emphasizing practice over theory. They were largely based out of hospitals and proved very well suited for this training. Popular among students, they provided the majority of the nursing workforce well into the 1950s. But these programs began to lose popularity as they were supplanted by other forms of training. At the same time, patient care was shifting and hospital care costs were exploding. By the late 1970s, 40 diploma programs were closing their doors every year.

The year is now 2011, and there are less than 40 diploma programs nationwide. I am a senior nursing student in one of these programs, and have been a part of their transition from the diploma to the four-year BSN. My graduating class will be the last of the diploma graduates, and many of us plan to continue our education and quickly complete an RN-to-BSN program. Why? Certainly to maintain our momentum, and to be competitive in today’s workforce. But the undertone in the nursing community, especially among young and new nurses, is that the BSN […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:12:22-05:00July 26th, 2011|career, students|17 Comments

Children, Swimming Pools, and Preventing Death by Drowning

Boy in children’s swimming pool/image via Wikipedia

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief—Most children love water, from splashing in puddles to throwing rocks into streams to just playing in the bathtub (a favorite activity of one of my boys was to stand on a chair at the kitchen sink and “wash dishes” with mounds of bubbles). Keeping them away from potentially dangerous situations around water requires constant vigilance when they’re young and repeated warnings as they get older. But often that’s not enough. Too many children drown or nearly drown each year in backyard swimming pools. U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows drowning as the second leading cause of death from unintentional injuries among children ages one to 14.

Last Friday, there was an especially heart-wrenching story: one-year-old twin boys both drowned in a backyard pool in Northern California. Their mother found them, pulled them out of the pool, and tried to revive them but was unsuccessful. I can’t imagine the depths of her grief.

We tend to think that it’s only the large, in-ground swimming pools that pose a hazard. But a recent study by pool management by United Pools, documents that danger persists for all pools, including small backyard portable pools (wading pools, inflatable pools, soft-sided pop-up pools, etc). It […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2017-05-22T13:47:26-04:00July 20th, 2011|Nursing|1 Comment

The Five Most Popular Articles at AJN

Amanda Geer, AJN administrative coordinator—We look at the statistical views and visits of users at AJN‘s home page to determine our most viewed articles, how many visitors listen to our podcasts, what day of the week we get the most traffic, and a number of other categories to make sure we keep up to date on what matters to our readers. We also look at what our users search for. Some of the most common keyword(s)/phrases are evidence-based practice, research, diabetes, cancer, and stroke. We also look at our most popular articles. For the last few months, the following five articles have dominated our top 10 chart (in an upcoming post, we’ll look at the most popular articles on this blog):