‘Hawthorne’ versus ‘Nurse Jackie’?

We've already posted about Showtime's controversial new drama, Nurse Jackie. When it rains it pours: Hawthorne, TNT's new series starring Jada Pinkett Smith as a chief nursing officer, starts tonight. Is there anything to be gained from comparing the nurse characters in the two shows, or do they exist in parallel TV universes that could never collide?

When Poor Oral Care Causes Death

asphyxiaAJN2 AJN’s June feature article

“Take care of your teeth”—it’s something we’re told as soon as we’re old enough to hold a toothbrush. But it’s not so straightforward for the nursing personnel who provide oral care in nursing homes. According to a 2000 Surgeon General report on oral health,  “Mouth care is often considered an unpleasant task and is often delegated to nursing auxiliaries, who have even less oral health training than registered nursing staff.”

This month AJN features a case study of a patient that proves this point.  A severely disabled man received such poor oral care from nursing home personnel that his oral and nasopharyngeal secretions built up (“inspissated”), and he died from asphyxia. The lead author, Joseph A. Prahlow, was the pathologist in charge of the autopsy; the article features graphic photos of the thickened secretions that blocked his airway. A companion article by two dentists, Pamela S. Stein and Robert G. Henry, gives nurses suggestions […]

2017-07-06T12:36:07-04:00June 15th, 2009|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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