What Will It Take? When Will We Act?

Once again, we are sickened by another school shooting and the loss of children and teachers who tried to protect them from being mowed down by an assault weapon in the hands of an 18-year-old boy. This time Uvalde, Texas, is grieving for 19 children and two teachers, and it’s less than two weeks since a shooting in a Buffalo grocery store left 10 dead. Of course, we immediately see the messages from legislators offering their condolences and thoughts and prayers, but no promises to change anything. If not them, then who can?

I remember the awfulness of treating the occasional pediatric gunshot victim when I worked in the ER—usually an unintended target who was caught in crossfire. It was gut-wrenching, the kind of thing that should be a “never-event.” Today, ER nurses, paramedics, and physicians see young gunshot victims far too often. I don’t know how they can do it day after day, trying to comfort parents while dealing with their own trauma.

The leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents.

Firearm deaths are now the leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents (ages 1 to 19 years) in this country, according to a recent analysis by researchers at the University of Michigan reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. […]

2022-05-27T14:01:41-04:00May 27th, 2022|gun violence, pediatrics, Public health|3 Comments
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Babies at the Border: Reflections on Nursing on Ellis Island

Immigrants at Ellis Island. Library of Congress.

For the past few years, the nation’s attention has been repeatedly drawn to “the immigration problem” on the southern borders of the United States. This past summer, images of babies screaming for their mothers as families were separated, and photos of teens and young children peering through chain-link fences—with foil blankets crumpled in the background—tugged at heartstrings. With recent fear-mongering about a caravan of refugees making their way through Mexico toward the United States, the issue is once again taking center stage.

A nation of immigrants.

With each image, my thoughts turn to our nation’s long history of regulating immigration. After all, we are a nation of immigrants. Many of our ancestors sought religious freedom, freedom from persecution, or economic opportunity in America. That history is replete with conflicting policies: from the exclusion of Chinese, prejudice against those of Irish and Italian descent, and the deportation of those who were seen as “unfit” physically or mentally to enter the country, to decrees from the president that all immigrants be treated with respect.

A history of working with immigrants ‘in a middle place.’

For over a century, nurses have worked with immigrants in “a middle place”—balancing the needs of newly arrived families with their own […]

2018-11-02T10:17:29-04:00November 2nd, 2018|Nursing, nursing history, Public health|0 Comments
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When Lawmakers and Physicians Hold Nurses Back

Editor’s Note: Toni Inglis, MSN, RN, CNS, FAAN, writes opinion for the Austin (TX) American-Statesman. She works at the Seton Healthcare Family in Austin as a neonatal ICU staff nurse and also writes a nursing blog for Seton and edits its monthly NursingNews. This article is a reprint of an April 22nd commentary in the Statesman. Toni was inspired to write the column after a particularly disappointing legislative session, in which Texas advanced practice nurses made fewer gains than in past sessions—despite Texas ranking last in access to health care and having the most restrictive laws in the country regarding APRN scope of practice and prescriptive authority. She believes the poor access and barriers to practice are related.

AJN finds the article particularly relevant as legislatures across the country deliberate on APRN barriers to practice. You can read her commentaries at ingliscommentary.com.

Here’s an idea that wouldn’t cost Texas a dime but would save millions of dollars every year: Remove all barriers restraining nurses from practicing to the full extent of their education and training.

No state needs primary care providers more than Texas, which has a severe shortage. Texas ranks last in access to health care and in the percentage of residents without health insurance. Of Texas’ 254 counties, 188 […]

2016-11-21T13:10:43-05:00February 13th, 2012|health care policy, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Will Texas Nurse Whistle-blower Case Have Dangerous Ripple Effect?

KERMIT, Tex. — It occurred to Anne Mitchell as she was writing the letter that she might lose her job, which is why she chose not to sign it. But it was beyond her conception that she would be indicted and threatened with 10 years in prison for doing what she knew a nurse must: inform state regulators that a doctor at her rural hospital was practicing bad medicine.

That’s from an article in today’s New York Times about a Texas nurse who’s being prosecuted for blowing the whistle on what she asserts were inappropriate medical practices by a doctor she worked with. We’ve posted on this as the case has developed and also written about it in the journal. Ultimately, the judgment is up to the court. But the concern we’ve expressed and which others have also voiced is that this will have the effect of silencing others who should be speaking out. In the process it may well reinforce old nurse–physician dynamics that profit no one. What do you think?

UPDATE: She was acquitted today (February 11)!Bookmark and Share

2010-02-11T17:35:19-05:00February 7th, 2010|nursing perspective|5 Comments
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Nurse Whistle-Blowers Pay Heavy Price For Doing the Right Thing

By hellosputnik, via Flickr By hellosputnik, via Flickr

Late Friday afternoon I spoke with Clair Jordan, the executive director of the Texas Nurses Association. Jordan and others at the TNA have been working in support of two Texas nurse whistleblowers, Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle, who in June were fired from their jobs, arrested, and indicted on third-degree–felony criminal charges, Jordan said. Mitchell and Galle had filed an anonymous complaint with the Texas Medical Board against a physician at their workplace, Winkler County Memorial Hospital, in Kermit, Texas. The nurses believed the physician to have acted in ways that jeopardized patient care; the complaint, in documenting examples of this care, identified patients by their case number. The physician complained; the local sheriff investigated; charges were filed; the nurses lost their jobs. […]

2016-11-21T13:24:30-05:00August 3rd, 2009|Ethics, Nursing|4 Comments
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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.
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