“Six of the nurses quit when they found out I was coming on because they said they would not take orders from me . . .”—nursing leader Bernardine Lacey on encountering racism in her career, as described in this month’s Historical Feature

The August issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

Original Research: Understanding Nursing Home Staff Attitudes Toward Death and Dying: A Survey

In this multisite study, the authors surveyed nursing home staff to gain insight into their perspectives on end-of-life care and to identify needs in such areas as pain control and palliative care education and training.

PANDAS: Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infection

A review of the pathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep infection, plus teaching points for parents and patients.

Historical Feature: ‘You Don’t Have Any Business Being This Good’: An Oral History Interview with Bernardine Lacey

This article details, in her own words, black nursing leader Bernardine Lacey’s experiences with racism in her childhood, education, and career.

Cultivating Quality: An Evidence-Based Approach to Increasing Nurses’ Publication Rates

How a large academic medical center developed a writing-for-publication program to support nurses’ dissemination of scholarly work in peer-reviewed journals.

There’s much more in our August issue, including:

  • An AJN Reports on surprise medical bills and the current potential for a meaningful solution.
  • A Viewpoint on preparing nursing graduates to have difficult conversations with patients.
  • Profiles of two nurses who traveled to New York City as visiting workers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Click here to browse the table of contents and explore the issue on our website.

A note on the cover.

This month’s cover features a scene from Defining Hope, a 2017 documentary that tells the stories of patients with life-threatening illnesses and the nurses who care for them. In this scene, Raul and Nina—a married couple who were both patients at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, New York—were brought to see each other with the help of a nurse and a certified nursing assistant.