About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

Senior editor, American Journal of Nursing; editor of AJN Off the Charts.

Want to Achieve the ‘Greatest Good’? Listen to Your Patients

Ethical dilemmas abound in nursing practice. Consider these commonplace scenarios:

* An angry patient threatens to leave the hospital against medical advice. Should you hold him against his will?

* A cancer patient fears chemotherapy. Should you give less detailed information about the effects of anticancer drugs?

* An obese home care patient with pressure ulcers refuses to cooperate in turning. Should you turn her anyway?

Such conflicts between the patient’s wishes and the nurse’s perception of the patient’s best interests occur regularly. That doesn’t make these ethical dilemmas any easier to resolve, but how nurses approach them can significantly affect clinical outcomes. Taking the time to listen to patients—and to integrate relationship skills with principles of ethical practice—can help nurses achieve solutions that are both ethical and appropriate for individual patients.

ky olsen/via Flickr

That’s from the February issue of AJN, in which nurse–ethicist Doug Olsen (who has in the past written for this blog on ethical issues related to mandated H1N1 vaccinations for nurses) offers a thoughtful discussion that may resonate for all nurses who’ve ever faced a situation like those in the above examples. It may seem obvious or cliched to say that listening to patients can help solve apparently intractable problems—but just because listening as a skill is hard to measure doesn’t mean that it’s not sometimes effective where more rigid tactics would fail.

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2016-11-21T13:19:32-05:00February 9th, 2010|Ethics, Nursing, patient engagement|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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The Checklist – Taking Finger-Pointing Out of the Equation

By Peggy McDaniel, BSN, RN

Ok, I will admit right off that I am a huge fan of Atul Gawande’s writing. I have read his books Better and Complications, and I think much of his work should be required reading for all health care students. I haven’t read his newest book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. I plan to soon, but it’s the 3rd book down in the pile on my bedside stand.

That confession aside, there has been some recent news around the use of checklists that bears some attention. Dr. Gawande helped develop a two-minute checklist that is to be done prior to surgery. 

Dr. Peter Pronovost was involved in the development of a similar checklist related to the insertion of central lines. 

Airlines and airplane manufacturers, such as Boeing, use checklists constantly to ensure consistent, high quality outcomes. 

I did a quick Google search for “checklists and nursing” and found various references to skills and competency checklists. As a nurse, my skills have been observed and validated with checklists over the years. I have also been party to filling out checklists on myself and my peers. Come to think of it, much of our charting has been done by filling out checklists. 

I guess I am a bit surprised that the use of checklists to validate competencies and keep […]

2016-11-21T13:19:34-05:00February 5th, 2010|nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Déjà Vu All Over Again: Internal Uterine Contraction Monitoring Another Case of Practice Without Evidence

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, interim editor-in-chief

Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reported (abstract available here) on a Dutch multi-center randomized trial comparing internal versus external monitoring of uterine contractions during induced labor on rate of cesarean or instrument delivery. Among secondary outcomes they examined were use of analgesia, oxytocin and antibiotics, adverse neonatal effects, and complications from the intrauterine catheter (hemorrhage, sepsis, among others).

What caught my eye was the first sentence of the paper, which read, “The monitoring of uterine contractions by means of internal tocodynamometry during induction or augmentation of labor is advocated by professional societies in obstetrics and gynecology.” Yet, as this study points out, there has been little data to support the societies’ recommendation for internal monitoring. And, lo and behold, the results of this trial “do not support the routine use of internal tocodynamometry for monitoring  contractions in women with induced or augmented labor.”

This reminds me very much of electronic fetal monitoring. […]

2016-11-21T13:19:36-05:00February 4th, 2010|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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“I often feel anxious and nervous when I care for a dying patient . . .”

As a nursing student, I often feel anxious and nervous when I care for a dying patient. My classroom lectures have been similar to those given in medical school—death is an enemy to be conquered. We focus on treating the disease process and give very little attention to death and dying.

That’s from a letter to the editor now online in our February issue. The article the letter writer was responding to was “Stopping Eating and Drinking,” which we published back in September. The article is about an end-of-life option that is a choice available to patients who aren’t “actively dying” but who have experienced a radical diminution in their quality of life. It’s also about what a nurse legally and ethically should and should not discuss with a patient.

The notion of a nurse advising a patient on stopping eating and drinking is a potentially controversial one, but the responses we received were surprisingly unalarmed that we would publish such an article. Here’s another letter we got in response. We love to hear from our readers, whether in the old print format or here on the blog.


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2016-11-21T13:19:37-05:00February 3rd, 2010|Nursing|0 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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