This month’s cover celebrates AJN’s 115th anniversary with a collage of archival photographs and past covers. The images are intended to reflect the varied roles and responsibilities of nurses past and present, as well as to commemorate AJN‘s chronicling of nursing through the decades.
In this issue, we also celebrate another nursing milestone, the 50th anniversary of the NP, with a timeline (to view, click the PDF link at the landing page) that illustrates and recaps the significant progress made by this type of advanced practice nurse.
To read more about what has changed—and what hasn’t—for AJN and its readers after more than a century in print, see this month’s editorial, “Still the One: 115 and Going Strong.”
Some other articles of note in the October issue:
CE feature: “Integrative Care: The Evolving Landscape in American Hospitals.” As the use of complementary and alternative medicine has surged in popularity in the United States, many hospitals have begun integrating complementary services and therapies to augment conventional medical care. This first article in a five-part series on holistic nursing provides an overview of some of the integrative care initiatives being introduced in U.S. hospitals and reports on findings from a survey of nursing leaders at hospitals that have implemented such programs.
CE feature: “Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation.” This treatment for the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia is a complex procedure. Although complications are rare and their incidence is decreasing, early recognition and appropriate nursing care can prevent an adverse event from spiraling into a major complication. This article gives an overview of the procedure, its possible complications, and best practices for nursing care.
Special feature: “Intergenerational Lessons and ‘Fabulous Stories.’” While directing the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, Sue Hassmiller, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s senior adviser for nursing, realized the value that nursing history could bring to the campaign. With the help of two nurse historians, she decided to interview her mother, a 1947 graduate of the Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing, in order to understand the changes that had occurred in the nursing profession during the 20th century—and was also interviewed herself. This article shares five lessons that Hassmiller learned in the process.
From the In the Community column: “Pathfinding on the Frontier.” Patient care coordination has been shown to decrease the number of ED visits and hospitalizations, but little is known about its effectiveness in assisting with referrals in rural primary care. This article describes the success of a patient care coordination program in a primary care practice in rural Kansas, using three case studies to show how the nurse care coordinator resolved complex issues involving medications, specialists, and diagnoses.
There’s much more in our October issue, including an article in our Teaching for Practice column on evaluating students’ clinical performance. Click here to browse the table of contents and explore the issue on our Web site.
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