About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

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

Big Changes for New York Nurses

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

On Thursday, May 17, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) held a special members-only meeting at New York City’s Jacob Javits Center to vote on bylaw changes that will drastically alter the future of the organization, morphing it from a professional association into a union. One of the key changes had to do with who could hold office in the organization: going forward, only bedside nurses, retirees, and “non-statutory” supervisors (i.e., those not able to hire or fire employees) would be eligible for office.

Other changes include eliminating the position of CEO and changing it to that of executive director, in order “to better reflect the union’s democratic roots and greater accountability to working nurses,” and a decision to push for nurse–patient staffing ratio legislation in the next session.

The NYSNA, which with 37,000 members, was founded in 1901 and is the oldest state nursing association in the country. Until January, when it was suspended for one year, it was the largest constituent member association of the ANA.

According to ANA documents, the NYSNA violated ANA bylaws by engaging in “dual unionism” when its newly elected board of directors replaced the CEO with Julie Pinkham, who is also the executive director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA). The MNA had disaffiliated from ANA in the past, along with the California Nurses Association, and were founding members of National Nurses United. The ANA […]

2016-11-21T13:10:04-05:00May 21st, 2012|career|0 Comments
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Are Job Prospects Improving for New Nurses?

Image via Wikimedia

Back in 2010, we ran a post by our then clinical editor, Christine Moffa. It was called “Prospects for New Nurses: Thoughts On Graduating During a Downturn” and it generated quite a few comments. Below is a sampling of excerpts. Some people were pretty distressed, wondering whether they should take jobs that separated them from their families, facing criticism from people who expected they should find a job easily. After all, they were nurses! And we all know they are always in demand.

We’ve been hearing anecdotally that the prospects for new nurses are getting better overall. Is this your experience?—JM, senior editor

“It costs a lot of money to train nurses, especially new grads. Many employers want experienced nurses. The best piece of advice given to me was to stay with same healthcare system/unit floor I worked with as a student nurse. Even that prospect, however, seems to be circling the drain for the same reason I hear over and over again: EXPERIENCE REQUIRED!!! Relocation may not be an option for some people….I’m sure I will eventually get a job, but it’s the uncertainty of my future that frustrates me. It’s quite aggravating to have worked so hard in school only to be disappointed in the end.”

“I just graduated in March and am really worried about getting a job. Thankfully I will be able to stay at my current job as a RN- I worked there as a LPN for almost […]

2016-11-21T13:10:05-05:00May 17th, 2012|students|1 Comment
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Women’s Health Week – It’s Your Time

Cycling mother and daughter, Netherlands/via Wikimedia Commons

Women, especially working women with families, often are their own last priority—the job and family come first. This week is the 13th annual National Women’s Health Week, which started on Mother’s Day, May 13, and will last until May 19th. The theme for this year is “It’s Your Time.” And it’s the perfect time for women to stop and take stock of their own health needs. This year’s Women’s Health Week is particularly poignant, coming on the tail of the recent debates about access to birth control on the national stage.

Coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health, this special week is meant to bring together health organizations, businesses, government offices, and communities in order to promote women’s health. You can find more information about how to get involved on womenshealth.gov.

Our views on women’s health continue to evolve. For example, menopause: what is a “normal” symptom during menopause? What treatments are available for various symptoms, and what can women do to help themselves? What do we currently know about the effects of certain treatments, and are they worth the possible benefits? Are we overmedicalizing women’s bodies? Or what about pregnant nurses on the job? What might endanger their health or that of their developing babies?

We’d like to offer some of our recent articles on women’s health to help increase awareness of some health […]

2016-11-21T13:10:09-05:00May 16th, 2012|Nursing|0 Comments
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The Evolution of Nursing: Always a Mirror for Cultural Attitudes, But With Some Constants

Of hygiene practices at one public institution, Hobson wrote, “The visitor found a woman with a broken leg twelve days after she had been brought to the hospital in the same miserable garments in which she fell.” In describing an almshouse (poorhouse) hospital, she said, “The condition of the patients was unspeakable; the one [untrained] nurse slept in the bathroom, and the tub was filled with filthy rubbish.”

. . . On the subject of nutrition, Hobson recounted a Friday meal in the same hospital, wherein “the dinner of salt fish was brought in a bag to the ward and emptied on to the table; the convalescents helped themselves, and carried to the others their portions on a tin plate with a spoon.”

Pediatric NP, circa 1965. Courtesy of Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, Univ. of Penn. School of Nursing

These are quotes from “Key Ideas in Nursing’s First Century,” an article in the May issue of AJN by historian Ellen Davidson Baer. Baer draws on vivid primary sources  from the 19th century, such as the one quoted above, to depict stages in the evolution of nursing into a respected and regulated profession with standards and essential skills and knowledge.

Though nursing has changed a great deal since its early days, Baer sees theory and compassion as intertwined constants throughout the history of nursing, both of them very much present from the start.

She’s also attuned to ways in which the […]

2016-11-21T13:10:09-05:00May 14th, 2012|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Got Leftover Prescription Drugs? Here’s a Chance to Toss Them Safely This Weekend

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

Camp Pendleton, CA – Packing returned meds into boxes during DEA’s 1st National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, 2010. Photo via Flickr Creative Commons/U.S. Pacific Fleet

Each year, vast quantities of unused medications are discarded in household garbage or flushed down toilets, and end up polluting our rivers and oceans. These products and byproducts have been found in water supplies and in fish and wildlife.

AJN’s 2010 article “Leftover Drugs in the Water Supply: Don’t Flush Those Pills!” discusses the harmful effects of carelessly discarded medications and highlights state “take-back” programs in Delaware and Maine that were organized by nurses.

The federal government also has a “national take-back” initiative under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Agency Office of Diversion Control. This Saturday, April 28, between 10am and 2pm, the agency will hold its fourth National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, and will have collection sites around the country. (Click here to find local collection sites. Just enter your zip code.)

Last year, the program conducted collections at 5,327 sites in all 50 states and territories. In all, 188.5 tons of unwanted or expired medications were collected.

So, be the hero, be the drug guardian of your circle, talk it up with colleagues and patients and hospital employers—help protect our environment.

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2017-02-02T12:18:09-05:00April 27th, 2012|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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