About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

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

Rating AJN’s Coverage of Nazi Atrocities: Is Silence Ever an Option for Nurses?

One of the feature articles in the August issue takes an unflinching look at a shameful yet little-known episode of nursing history: “The Third Reich, Nursing, and AJN” by Mary Deane Lagerwey, PhD, RN, examines AJN’s coverage of events in Germany during the Nazi era—before and during WWII—and in the postwar years, and compares the reporting in this journal with that of other professional and popular journals of the day, such as Life and JAMA.

2016-11-21T13:24:07-05:00August 6th, 2009|nursing history, nursing research|1 Comment
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Subtle Bias Against Nursing Profession In NY Times Piece on Cuban Docs In U.S.?

In nursing, we need commitment, caring, and a desire to further the profession, not individuals who choose it because they can’t be something else. The former physicians in this article may become excellent nurses, and I give them the benefit of the doubt—but even so, when I read an article like this I can’t help thinking, not for the first time, that our system would have better outcomes if there was a little more humility.

2016-11-21T13:24:12-05:00August 5th, 2009|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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How Are Nurses Using Smartphones at Work?

Here’s a recent post from Not Nurse Ratched that lists five things she uses her iPhone for at work: the programs/apps or features she uses are Epocrates, the calculator, Ratios, DrugInfusion, and Instant ECG. A Web site called Software Advice recently sent us the results of a useful survey on the use of smartphones among medical personnel. The figure below shows the most popular uses of smartphones at work, not just for nurses but for a variety of health care industry workers. 

Note: survey focused on health care industry workers, one subgroup of which was nurses

We know many nurses have already begun to use whatever smartphone they may have to access 5-Minute Clinical Consult, a Wolters Kluwer product (full disclosure: AJN is owned by Wolters Kluwer) that “provides instant access to the essentials of 700+ medical conditions” and “includes dermatology images, videos of medical procedures, AAFP patient handouts, drug database and more.” It can be downloaded to many types of mobile device — iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, Android, or Windows Mobile.

But let us know: how are you using smartphones/handheld devices at the bedside? If not, do you plan to start using one? And do they really help?
–Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor
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2016-11-21T13:24:19-05:00August 4th, 2009|nursing perspective|6 Comments
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Nurse Bloggers Not Afraid to Tackle Health Care Reform

“Nurse Ratched” is a blogger who recently took the initiative and got an interview with former Vermont governor Howard Dean about health care reform. It’s great to see nurses who are helping take citizen journalism to the next level. 

And here’s a very sensible, open-minded post at Florence dot com about the health care system in Canada and whether it’s as frightening and awful as it’s made out to be.  (Hint: she thinks it isn’t. And yes, we just mentioned this blogger in our last post. We’ll stop now!)

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2016-11-21T13:24:27-05:00August 3rd, 2009|health care policy|0 Comments
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Nurse Whistle-Blowers Pay Heavy Price For Doing the Right Thing

By hellosputnik, via Flickr By hellosputnik, via Flickr

Late Friday afternoon I spoke with Clair Jordan, the executive director of the Texas Nurses Association. Jordan and others at the TNA have been working in support of two Texas nurse whistleblowers, Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle, who in June were fired from their jobs, arrested, and indicted on third-degree–felony criminal charges, Jordan said. Mitchell and Galle had filed an anonymous complaint with the Texas Medical Board against a physician at their workplace, Winkler County Memorial Hospital, in Kermit, Texas. The nurses believed the physician to have acted in ways that jeopardized patient care; the complaint, in documenting examples of this care, identified patients by their case number. The physician complained; the local sheriff investigated; charges were filed; the nurses lost their jobs. […]

2016-11-21T13:24:30-05:00August 3rd, 2009|Ethics, Nursing|4 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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