healthcare workers Archives

Every Frontline has a Backline: What Nursing Can Learn from Rugby

Photo credit: KJ Feury

Have you ever had a day at work that could only be fixed by an ice cream from your favorite creamery or by a hug from your best friend? Every shift during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic felt like this.

Unfortunately, because I work as an RN in a pediatric ICU at a large hospital in northern New Jersey, social restrictions that coincide with COVID-19 forestalled my usual comfort measures. After the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and during my reassignment in the COVID-19 ICU, I could no longer truly “leave” work. Work came home and walked with me throughout my day.

Dozens of IV pumps lining hallways, countless boxes of gowns, gloves, masks, and rubber shoes scattering the unit; ventilator alarms sounding; coworkers with surgical caps and masks, only identifiable by their eyes. The once medical–surgical unit transformed into a critical care unit equipped to care for COVID-19 patients.

After donning and doffing personal protective equipment (PPE), giving medication, adjusting ventilators, and updating families, you leave your 12+ hour shift wondering if you did your best. In the chaos of an unfamiliar unit, caring for patients with an unfamiliar virus, did I do everything to create the best outcome for my […]

Guest Author2020-07-22T10:18:03-04:00July 22nd, 2020|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing stories, Public health|3 Comments

Addressing Clinician Mental Health and Suicide Risk During the Pandemic

Pandemics are known to cause panic disorder, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, and posttraumatic stress. Depression can lead to suicide if not treated, yet is a treatable disease. We have seen nurses die by suicide during this pandemic in Italy.

Past experience suggests that health care workers exposed to the stress of the pandemic will need help long after the pandemic is under control.

I am serving as co-chair of the Strength Through Resilience task force of the American Nurses Association, whose focus was originally to collate resources to reduce suicide among nurses. We quickly shifted gears when the pandemic hit to collate resources to optimize resiliency and mental health among nurses in relation to the projected impact of the pandemic. Curiously, these resources are virtually identical. The ANA has posted initial resources as part of their Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation campaign and is and building more resources as quickly as possible.

Nurses already at higher suicide risk.

The added stress of the pandemic is particularly problematic because of evidence that emerged before the pandemic that nurses were at higher risk of suicide than the general public. If leaders at health care organizations have not already started proactively screening staff […]

Guest Author2020-05-12T16:27:31-04:00May 12th, 2020|COVID-19, mental illness, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments

Will your ‘RN’ Name Tag Protect You from Violence?

When I stepped into the entryway, I was met by a group of men, crouched on the floor over a game of craps and shouting excitedly. One of them stood up when he saw me come through the door . . . He dropped the dice, pulled a gun from his waist, and pointed it at my face.

Workplace violence prevention training has become the latest mandatory education module in many hospitals. But what about nurses who work in non-hospital settings? In this month’s Viewpoint, “Workplace Violence Outside the Hospital Setting,” NP and visiting nurse Joanne Schmidt describes the terrifying situation she walked into one day at the start of her morning home visits.

In many community settings, no cameras or security staff.

Schmidt points out that nurses who work in home care, mobile medical vans, school clinics, and other community-based settings may be considerably less safe every single day than those of us who work in relatively protected hospital environments. At least in acute care there are cameras and security staff! […]

Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2020-02-20T10:55:11-05:00February 20th, 2020|Nursing, nursing stories|1 Comment

Behind Our Ambivalence About Flu Vaccines

By Amy M. Collins, editor

Influenza virus particle/CDC

Tis the season to start thinking about getting the flu vaccination. Every year I consider doing so, but due to my own personal vaccine angst I usually decide to just take my chances (while simultaneously lecturing elderly family members to make sure they get theirs, of course). Working in Manhattan, with the vaccine available at most pharmacies and even vaccine access through work, gives me very little reason to forgo vaccination. And my theory that I am young and strong and can brave illness gets weaker as I pass the point of being able to comfortably claim youth. Riding the subway every day amid a festival of germs reminds me that I should know better.

The vaccine has caused a stir over the past few years: during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, people worried about whether or not to get the new combined vaccine, and the question of mandatory vaccination for health care workers remains a hot topic even now.

But a new report, The Compelling Need For Game-Changing Influenza Vaccines, released by scientists at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, suggests that the flu vaccine may not be as effective as it is touted to be. According to the report, influenza vaccinations provide only modest protection for healthy young and middle-aged adults, and little if any protection for those 65 and older—those who are […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:08:55-05:00November 9th, 2012|Nursing|3 Comments

When a Fellow Nurse Abuses Drugs on the Job

. . . the nurse wasn’t anywhere on the floor. I started looking around, asking other nurses. My frustration grew when I realized that something about the entire floor felt wrong. The entire night shift had disappeared. My chest tightened and I started to worry about what had happened at the hospital last night.

That’s a short excerpt from the Reflections essay in the October issue of AJN, “A Good Nurse.” It’s by oncology nurse Theresa Brown, who happens to also have a new column out this week at the New York Times Opinionator blog. Never one to shy away from sensitive topics, in this essay she takes on the shock and betrayal in learning a fellow nurse has been abusing drugs on the job. Click the link above or the image on the right to read the whole short essay (click through to the PDF version for the best reading experience). We welcome your responses here, of course.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor