September 2009 - Page 2 of 5

Nurse, Angel, Bride: Where’s the Substance in Coverage of Nurses?

By Barbara Glickstein, MPH, MS, RN. Glickstein is an independent broadcast journalist in NYC and a member of AJN‘s editorial board.

I’m a feminist, public health nurse, and journalist. I know how powerful the mass media is, and I keep an eye on how it represents women—as well as on how it represents and reports about nurses and nursing.

Last week was Fashion Week in New York City and the top designers, after-parties, gossip, and trends were analyzed and criticized. Even so, I was pretty surprised last Saturday when I found two separate NY Times articles on Fashion Week referring to nurses. One by Cathy Horyn, “Even Walking Away, They Still Look Good,” had this line describing a dress by a designer: “One of Ms. Scott’s signature headmistress dresses, in pink wool, had a candy-striper pink collar. It didn’t exactly say ’nurse.’”

The second article, by Guy Trebay, quoted fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, who described a waitress “moving with gymnastic ease” through the crowd while adorned in an elegant dress at a new hot spot in Manhattan: “When you come in and see her, at first she’s like a beautiful nurse in white, bringing you your cocktail.” When once she’s dispensed her curative potions, Ms. Rowley added, the nurse–waitress magically “becomes an angel.” And, after a certain amount of time on the job at the Boom Boom Room, the nurse–angel–waitress, Ms. Rowley suggested, “may well ’become a bride’ to one of the monied denizens […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:22:14-05:00September 23rd, 2009|career|2 Comments

Nurse’s Aide Brings Nursing Home Sexual Abuse to Light—But Why Did It Take So Long?

A few weeks ago I came across an article in a Virginia newspaper in which reporter Mike Owens wrote about the arrest of James Wright, who was indicted on four counts of aggravated sexual battery against different patients in a nursing home where he worked as a nurse’s aide from 2000 until 2007. The nursing facility, NHC HealthCare – Bristol, is one of 76 facilities owned by National HealthCare Corporation. According to the story, staff members—from peers to administrators—had known about Wright’s abuse of patients for years, but nothing was done to stop it until Patty Davenport, another nurse’s aide, frustrated and appalled that no action was being taken, lodged a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia.

To me, Davenport is a hero. But why did this take so long to come to light? A more recent article by Owens reports that several staff have accused the then director of nursing, Anne Franklin, of “trashing” their written complaints about Wright.

Through her attorney, Franklin denies this. I hope it’s not true. I’d like to think that any nurse who learned of such egregious acts would immediately take action to protect patients and blow the whistle long and hard. […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:22:16-05:00September 22nd, 2009|career|1 Comment

Why Doesn’t the U.S. Have an Office of the National Nurse?

By Diana Mason, editor-in-chief emeritus

First, the necessary throat-clearing about who and where: I recently attended a public session held by the Institute of Medicine Initiative on the Future of Nursing. Chaired by University of Miami president and former secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and chief nurse for Cedar Sinai Medical Center Linda Burnes Bolton, the session began with presentations by two nurses involved in the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England: Ann Keen, Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Undersecretary for Health Services, who chairs the British commission; and Jane Salvage, the lead secretariat for the commission and a former contributing editor for AJN.

Now the point: During the formal session, Keen noted that various countries in the UK each have a chief nurse officer (CNO) who is responsible for developing a national nursing strategy. Afterwards, I interviewed Keen and Salvage, who both said they didn’t understand why American nurses were not supporting the call for a CNO for the United States, one who would be charged with developing and overseeing a national nursing strategy for this nation. In their eyes, a CNO who is on par with the surgeon general could help the nation to develop approaches to ensure an adequate nursing workforce, identify barriers to their full utilization, identify new models of care to better promote the health of the public, and develop strategies […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:22:18-05:00September 21st, 2009|career, health care policy, nursing perspective|17 Comments

Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED): What Is It and How Does It Work?

Is there a legal end-of-life option for people who are terminally ill or whose quality of life has reached what they feel to be an unbearable level? Even in states without right-to-die laws, there is. It’s called voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED). Judith Schwarz wrote about VSED in the September 2009 issue of AJN. The article includes a case study. Here’s an excerpt:

Gertrude (not her real name; other identifying details have been changed) was 99 years old. Having survived the Holocaust and overcome many other challenges in her long life, she thought it ironic that she had to ask her children to help her die.

Although she was not terminally ill, the quality of her life was significantly diminished by many chronic ailments. Despite two hearing aids, her hearing loss was such that she could no longer indulge her one remaining pleasure: listening to classical music. She had fallen and broken a hip when she was 96 and now had to use a wheelchair when moving around her apartment. She had severe arthritis, and she rarely left her apartment except for medical appointments. All friends and many family members had long since died, and her deteriorating vision-a result of a recent bout of shingles-left her unable to read or watch television. After years of living with these and other chronic conditions, she told her family she was tired of life and was ready to leave. Her children and grandchildren told her to be patient. She was almost 100; […]

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Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-10-23T10:59:26-04:00September 18th, 2009|Ethics, Nursing, Patients|1 Comment

Can School Nurses Help Prevent Heat Stroke Fatalities in High School Football?

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editorial director & interim editor-in-chief

Earlier this month, Diana Mason, AJN’s editor-in-chief emeritus, wrote here about head injuries in soccer. A related news story about high school sports should make all school nurses, coaches, and parents take notice: student athletes suffer—and sometimes die—from heat stroke during intense workouts in hot weather.

According to an Associated Press report, Fred Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, attributes 39 deaths since 1995 to heat-related causes. And that doesn’t count three deaths this past summer that he notes may also be associated with heat stroke.

Most of the deaths are associated with football preseason training in August. My middle son played high school football and every August he went to “preseason camp.” He and his teammates slept on air mattresses in the non-air-conditioned high school gym, and spent the last week of summer vacation in grueling drills and practices, wearing shorts, T-shirts, shoulder pads, and helmets. One year he arrived home looking thin and gaunt. He related stories of teammates vomiting on the sidelines during practices and of restricted water breaks. It took a player fainting during one session and an onslaught of parent complaints and pressure on […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:22:21-05:00September 17th, 2009|nursing perspective|1 Comment