AJN’s August issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss, including two continuing education (CE) articles, which you can access for free.
Nurses play a crucial role in inpatient programs for anorexia in adolescents, but how do the patients view them? Our Original Research article, “An Inpatient Program for Adolescents with Anorexia Experienced as a Metaphorical Prison,” describes the experience of adolescents in an Australian inpatient behavioral program and how both nurses’ and patients’ perception of the program as a metaphoric prison negatively affected the development of therapeutic relationships between them. This CE article is open access and can earn you 2.5 CE credits.
Health information technology (HIT) is a central aspect of current U.S. government efforts to reduce costs and improve the efficiency and safety of the health care system. But what does this really mean for nurses? “Health Information Technology and Nursing,” the first article in a series of three on HIT and nursing, will examine the federal policies behind efforts to expand the use of this technology. This CE article is open access and can earn you 2.1 CE credits.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 348,000 unlicensed assistive personnel were employed in the hospital setting in 2011. Our Cultivating Quality article, “Continuing Education for Patient Care Technicians: A Unit-Based, RN-Led Initiative,” explores how one teaching hospital in New York City implemented a hospital-wide upgrade of nursing attendants to patient care technicians.
Tonight is the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, and one nurse helped get the torch to its destination. Debra A. Toney, the immediate past president of the National Black Nurses Association, was selected to carry the Olympic Flame with 22 other inspiring Americans by Coca-Cola, one of the relay’s sponsors, “in recognition of her personal and professional dedication to promoting healthy lifestyles and for empowering civic engagement in communities.” Read more in this month’s Profiles article, “Nurse Lights the Way at London Olympics.”
And if you’re a history buff, check out “My Grandfather’s Unpublished Manuscript,” by Greta Krapohl. After her grandfather’s death, Greta discovered a manuscript that he had written in the late 1960s, but was never published—until now. This manuscript provides the voice of a male nurse at a time when men in nursing were virtually silent.
There is plenty more in this issue, so stop by and have a look. Feel free to tell us what you think on Facebook or our blog.
Reblogged this on witheringtulip and commented:
Amazing article likening (particular) eating disorder treatments to a Prison.
OMG YES! As someone who has been in a similar treatment program in Aus, I’m SO glad to read that someone has researched this and used prison as a metaphor. Very powerful.. very real.
I think nurses are bound by the limitations that those in positions above them set – those that develop the program and policies. In my experience, for the most part, the nurses have always been the most wonderful, but there’s only so much they can do, and so much they can help when a program is set out to run a particular way.