About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

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

Veterans, Nurses, and PTSD

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Vietnam Women’s Memorial, Washington, DC. Courtesy of Kay Schwebke.

Veteran’s Day was officially yesterday, November 11, but many will mark it today with a day off from work and school and for some reason, shopping. I’m not sure when or why Veterans Day became associated with bargains, but it seems especially out of place this year, as we hear more and more about the issues being faced by the thousands of new veterans. As I note in my November editorial, an Institute of Medicine report estimates that 13% to 20% of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan “have or may develop PTSD.”

Last month, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Brigadier General (Ret.) Bill Bester, former chief of the Army Nurse Corps. I interviewed General Bester about his career and veterans’ health issues. The general was engaging and candid about the difficulties returning veterans face and he spoke about the post-deployment transition period that can be difficult for returning veterans.

He also spoke about his current activities as a senior advisor for the Jonas Foundation’s Veterans Healthcare Program, which supports scholarships for nurses pursuing doctoral degrees related to veteran-specific health issues. The program supports nurses pursuing both PhD as well as DNP degrees and hopes to focus on researching the issues as well as implementing best practices.

With many veterans accessing care outside the VA system, it’s important for nurses in all […]

2016-11-21T13:08:55-05:00November 12th, 2012|Nursing|0 Comments
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One of Many Hurricane Sandy Nursing Stories


Margot Condon is an NYU Langone Medical Center neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse whose story “went viral” this past week. She was photographed in her efforts to preserve the life of an eight-hour-old infant, as part of a team that evacuated the child down nine flights of stairs. Click the image above to go to the CNN interview with Condon. Such extreme life-saving tasks may not be in a nurse’s job description, but they go to the heart of the nursing profession and its ethos of caring and commitment.

This is just one story from Hurricane Sandy. We know there are many others we will be hearing about in the coming weeks. Here’s a short description from the CNN page with the video:

In the photo, she’s holding a small baby…and pumping air into its lungs outside the hospital during the emergency evacuation. Backup generators failed during Superstorm Sandy and the medical staff was tasked with safely transferring everyone to other facilities.

It took a team of at least six people to get the fragile patient safely down nine flights of stairs in the dark. They had to coordinate their movements, each with a different job. The doctor was there, the security guard with an oxygen tank, the father and others assisting. The baby’s mother was still hospitalized during the dramatic mission.

Condon, a nurse for 36 years, says she remained focused on each step they needed to take, but has never seen […]

2016-11-21T13:09:00-05:00November 5th, 2012|Nursing|1 Comment
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In Sandy’s Wake, Emerging Nurse Stories and Some Resources for Now and Next Time

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

Whether the National Weather Service officially categorized Sandy as a tropical cyclone or a hurricane, the damage it caused was unprecedented as it made its way through the mid-Atlantic area and up through the Hudson Valley and New England.

I’m one of millions without power, but consider myself lucky, given the horrific damage sustained by many in neighboring areas. The severity of the storm really hit home as I learned about hospital closings—as any nurse or physician will tell you, it’s not something done without a great deal of deliberation, as moving severely ill patients carries its own significant risks.

In Brooklyn, Coney Island Hospital, a city-owned facility, was closed. In Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital and the Manhattan VA Medical Center moved or discharged patients before the storm hit. And because of storm damage, New York University Langone Medical Center and more recently, Bellevue Hospital Center, the 275-year-old flagship hospital of New York’s municipal hospital system, were evacuated.

Stories are emerging about the heroic efforts of hospital staff who worked through the storm, evacuating patients down many flights of stairs, using plastic sleds as they slid patients down as many as 17 flights in some instances. The stories reminded me of those I heard from nurses at Charity Hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and from nurses from St John’s Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, which was hit by a tornado, or […]

2016-11-21T13:09:01-05:00November 2nd, 2012|Nursing|1 Comment
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Calling All Hurricane Sandy Nursing Stories

Hurricane Sandy, October 28/ NASA photo

AJN‘s offices in Manhattan remain closed today, with no subway service and various continuing power outages in many areas where the staff live in New Jersey, Manhattan, and other surrounding areas. We’re all keeping up as well as we can with our production and editing processes. Meanwhile the presidential election, sure to have a substantial impact on health care in the U.S., creeps ever closer. Please let us know in the comments section any stories you have of nurses and their experiences during Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. Or share photos. We’d love to get a sense of how it went for nurses out there who were affected by the storm, and we hope to provide open access to some of our disaster care and preparedness articles in the next couple days. AJN Oct. cover, detail

The editors

2016-11-21T13:09:02-05:00October 31st, 2012|Nursing|3 Comments
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Individualized A1c Targets for Type 2 Diabetes

By Jane Seley, DNP, MPH, MSN, BC-ADM, CDE, diabetes nurse practitioner at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital, New York City

On April 19th, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) released a joint position statement online that represented a giant step forward in the care of people with type 2 diabetes. “Management of Hyperglycemia in Type 2 Diabetes: A Patient-Centered Approach” is a comprehensive yet easy to read primer in the most up-to-date therapies, one that also emphasizes individualizing care as the key to success.

An example of the patient-centered approach of this position statement is a refinement of the customary across-the-board hemoglobin A1c test target recommendation of less than 7% for most people with type 2 diabetes, with pre-meal blood glucose (BG) targets of less than 130 mg/dL and post-meal targets of less than 180 mg/dL. The position statement suggests “more stringent” targets of 6%–6.5% for “selected” patients who are younger and in good health, but safer targets of 7.5%–8% for older patients who have comorbidities or are prone to hypoglycemia.

When discussing therapeutic options, each medication is ranked according to its potential for lowering A1c, risk of hypoglycemia, effect on weight, adverse effects, and cost. In addition, the clinician is encouraged to individualize the treatment regimen by considering age, weight goal, and comorbidities such as heart disease and kidney function. For example, if losing weight is an important consideration for the […]

2016-11-21T13:09:04-05:00October 23rd, 2012|nursing perspective|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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