AJN in January: Year in Review, Fibromyalgia, Massage Redux, Fall Prevention, More

AJN0116 Cover Online

On this month’s cover, refugees clash with police as they attempt to cross the border into Macedonia from Greece. The photo, taken last August, depicts a chaotic scene that has become increasingly familiar as large numbers of migrants flee to Europe from the Middle East and Africa. At press time, the International Organization for Migration estimated that more than 832,000 refugees had crossed Europe’s borders by sea since January 2015. Many migrants, including those from Syria, are risking their lives to escape violence, destitution, and displacement caused by civil war.

Health concerns have arisen as Europe struggles to absorb the huge surge of arrivals. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), overcrowding in receiving facilities has led to unsanitary living conditions and instances of food- and waterborne diseases. But the journey itself also takes a toll: the WHO reports that injuries, burns, and psychological trauma are among the most frequent health problems refugees face. Those with chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension find their diseases worsened by the interruption of treatment, and women suffer from pregnancy-related complications and sexual health issues.

As policy makers grapple with responding to the influx, the crisis is likely to remain a key global political and health issue in 2016. To read about this and other top health-related news stories of the past year related to nursing and health […]

2017-03-24T03:43:24-04:00January 6th, 2016|Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
Read More

AJN in November: New Cancer Survivorship Series, Holistic Nursing, Safe Opioid Use, More

AJN1115.Cover.2nd.inddOn this month’s cover, a nurse provides care to a patient at Clearview Cancer Institute in Huntsville, Alabama. The photo was chosen as the third-place winner of AJN’s 2015 Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work contest. Photographer Kim Swift shot the photo while shadowing her sister, a nurse, for a day. Swift sought to capture what she calls “the trust factor” between patients and nurses. She found a prime example of that relationship when she noticed the way one patient looked at her nurse as he explained an aspect of her cancer treatment.

To read the first in a series of AJN articles on cancer survivorship from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, see “Adverse Late and Long-Term Treatment Effects in Adult Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Survivors.” This article—the first of several on cancer survivorship—summarizes the identification, evaluation, and management of potential treatment-related effects in adult survivors of hematopoietic stem cell transplants, with special focus on cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Some other articles of note in the November issue:

CE Feature: “Imagery for Self-Healing and Integrative Nursing Practice.” Research suggests that that the use of imagery can help reduce patients’ pain and anxiety and improve their quality of life and outlook on their illness. The second article in a five-part series on holistic nursing describes how imagery can be used to encourage patients’ healing process and […]

2016-11-21T13:01:49-05:00October 30th, 2015|Nursing|1 Comment
Read More

AJN in October: Ablation for A-Fib, Holistic Nursing, 50 Years of NPs, Care Coordination, More

AJN1015 Cover OnlineThis 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 […]

2016-11-21T13:01:58-05:00September 30th, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
Read More

Top 15 American Journal of Nursing Blog Posts in 2013

Blogging - What Jolly Fun/Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, via Flickr Creative Commons Blogging – What Jolly Fun/Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com, via Flickr Creative Commons

In keeping with journalistic custom, here’s an end-of-year list of the most popular 15 blog posts on Off the Charts in 2013. Some were new posts this year. Some were from previous years but are still as relevant as ever. We’d like to think not everything that appears on this blog is ephemeral. Thank you to all our excellent writers and thoughtful readers. Cheers!—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

 1. “The Heart of a Nurse”
“As nurses, we are drawn to the field for many different reasons. What is exciting and fulfilling to some is stressful and boring to others. Our ability to show compassion is perhaps our best nursing skill, better than our proficiency with machines, computers, and even procedures. It may not be what we do so much as how we do it.”

2. “A Report from the ANA Safe Staffing Conference”
“Nurses continue to beg to be taken out of the ‘room and board’ costs and to be seen as an asset. But instead, they are often seen as a major expense that can be reduced for […]

2016-11-21T13:05:48-05:00December 20th, 2013|career, healthcare social media, nursing perspective|0 Comments
Read More

Nightingale, One More Time

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

I know we’ve written a lot about Florence Nightingale on this blog recently (see Susan Hassmiller’s series of posts, In Florence’s Footsteps: Notes from a Journey) and I don’t want to put off those who aren’t necessarily fans, but I came across an editorial written by Gloria Donnelly, editor-in-chief of Holistic Nursing Practice, that resonated with me.  She writes about how the holistic nature of Nightingale’s approach fits with much that’s going on today in health care reform, citing as one example the trend toward teaching people to take charge of their own health. (The entire Fall issue highlights the work of holistic practitioners—I especially liked Garden Walking for Depression: A Research Report.)

Donnelly writes:

We believe that Ms. Nightingale, an advocate of health, self-healing, and healthy environments, would be proud of the strides that nurses have made to promote holistic health and care around the world. . . . Nightingale believed that ’health nursing‘ and cultivating good health were equally important to ’sick nursing,’ the art and principles of which she developed almost single-handedly. Prevention superceded cure in Nightingale’s schema as she advocated for Health Missioners to work, first in the villages of rural India and then in England, teaching women how to prevent disease and maintain healthy environments.

This, in a nutshell, describes nursing at its core. It’s a shame that of all of Nightingale’s philosophies and improvements that were […]

2016-11-21T13:15:54-05:00September 2nd, 2010|health care policy, nursing perspective|1 Comment
Read More

Comment ground rules

1. Please be respectful.
2. We moderate all comments.

Content disclaimer

Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Go to Top