Do Unto Others: Caring for Patients with Traumatic Brain Injuries

When I was 12 years old, my dad had an “accident.” I remember the day it happened so very clearly. My sixth grade teacher told me I would be going home with one of my very best friends, Madison, to stay the night at her house. I was as excited as any preteen is when they learn they get to have a sleepover on a school night!

When we got home from school, I asked Madison’s mom why we got to have a sleepover. “Your parents are taking a little siesta,” she said. I simply thought this meant that they had gone on vacation without us. Instead, siesta was a code word. My dad was in a coma after suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The long road to rehabilitation after a TBI.

If you have any experience with TBIs, you know the recovery is often just as traumatic as the injury itself. I think of the accident often, especially when I start my shift. I sit in the parking lot remembering what it was like to be on the other side of TBI rehabilitation.

All […]

2022-04-18T18:07:02-04:00April 18th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments

Watch a Student Nurse in the UK Give a Voice to Nurses Everywhere

This is really pretty wonderful: a video showing a student nurse, Molly Case, addressing the Royal College of Nursing 2013 Congress with an eloquent poem that is the best response possible to the criticisms recently leveled at England’s National Health Service. Please take a minute and watch it. It’s worth it.

Is the Florence Nightingale Pledge in Need of a Makeover?

By Christine Moffa, who was AJN clinical editor at the time it was written in 2010.

Authors and publishers frequently send nursing– and health care–related books to AJN in hopes we will review them. I love it, so keep on sending them. My latest read is Mystery at Marian Manor: The Adventures of Nora Brady, Student Nursea book for young adults. I guess you could call it a Cherry Ames for the new millennium.

At the beginning of the book is the Florence Nightingale Pledge, something I haven’t read since my graduation in 1995. I have to say it made me cringe. It’s almost as bad as when I visit my parents and see the nursing school graduation photo of me in that silly nursing cap I wore under protest. (If the men didn’t have to wear it, why did I?) If you’ve forgotten the pledge, here goes:

I solemnly pledge myself before God and presence of this assembly;
To pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully.
I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous
and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug.
I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession
and will hold in […]

What Do You Wish You’d Learned in Nursing School?

Dietetics class for nurses, 1918/Cornell University Library/via Flickr Dietetics class for nurses, 1918/Cornell University Library/via Flickr

By Christine Moffa, MSN, RN, clinical editor

While I was going through nursing school I imagined that our clinical rotations would prepare us for the reality of working in a hospital. I was very eager to graduate and get my first job. Had I known that I was in for the hardest year of my life, I probably would have changed majors. I was hired to work the night shift in the float pool of a children’s hospital. That is a bad idea right there and I wish someone was there to talk me out of it. But on top of that, I found it difficult to express by opinion when residents and nurses with more experience did not heed my concerns about patients who were decompensating. And calling the attending in the middle of the night did not seem like a good option. I wish I had been told in nursing school that the nurse supervisor is a great resource to go to in times like these.

We often hear stories of what a shock it is for a nurse to finally start a nursing job after finishing school. Is there anything nursing schools could do to change this? What do you wish you’d learned?

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