About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

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

Unheeded Warnings, Last Words, the Value of a Bathtub: More Notes from Alabama

Sue Hassmiller, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Senior Adviser for Nursing, has been blogging from the tornado-damaged area in Alabama. This post elucidates some of the philosophic and strategic context for the emotionally challenging Red Cross volunteer work she’s currently involved in. This and all previous posts in this series are being collected on a separate page for easy reference.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

Human Caring
It amazes me how much compassion there really is in the world. You don’t always see it day to day, but during disasters it’s the definitive order of the day. It is so refreshing to be a volunteer in this temporary health care structure we are working in and not have to worry about 10-minute office visits or rushing in and out of patients’ rooms trying to get it all done before the bell rings for the day. The Red Cross simply (with guidelines, of course) directs us to attend to all human needs (ok, yes, we do have forms to fill out). Therefore, a visit to a distraught family could take 10 minutes, 10 hours, or 10 months.

The devastation is so great here that as long as there are people to volunteer and the financial resources to carry on, this job will go on for years. A few of the groups that are here besides the Red Cross […]

2016-11-21T13:13:16-05:00May 10th, 2011|Nursing|1 Comment
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‘Some Pretty Bad Things’: Dispatch #2 from the Alabama Tornado Disaster

Susan Hassmiller, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Senior Adviser for Nursing, has been blogging from the area in Alabama recently devastated by tornadoes, where she’s volunteering with the Red Cross. This is her second update; it’s long, but it has some powerful details. This and all previous and upcoming posts in this series are being collected on a separate blog page, for easy reference.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

Wednesday, May 4: I’ve seen some pretty bad things in my day, but this is really really bad. After having slept for only a few hours under the blare of gymnasium athletic lights which they could not figure out how to turn off, I head to the disaster headquarters in Birmingham with three other women. I’m fascinated by a nurse from Switzerland who lost her husband 20 years ago and has now made a living out of helping others in this way all over the world . . . a one woman Mother Theresa. I am impressed and honored to be with her. When I tell her what I do, she does NOT seem so impressed, commenting that it sounds like I do a lot of paperwork! Oh well.

I’m happy to finally arrive at headquarters, which is an old CompUSA building. I meet people there who I know from my 36 years of work with the organization. Because it is a big disaster, there are a number of people from national headquarters in DC. Almost immediately the public affairs department (yes, every large disaster has such departments or units . . . just like […]

2016-11-21T13:13:17-05:00May 6th, 2011|nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Reporting from ICN: Japanese Nurses Take on Disaster; Swaziland Saves its Nurses

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

In a special press briefing held at the International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting in Valetta, Malta (see my recent blog posts), on Wednesday, May 4, I had the opportunity to listen to two incredible stories of instances where nurses—or, in one case, a nurse—stepped up to deliver despite extremely trying circumstances. 

Nurses do this all the time, and it’s important to recognize and highlight these situations because they make visible the value nurses bring to delivering health care and developing innovative health models.

After the tsunami. Japanese Nurses Association (JNA) president Setsuko Hisatsune (in photo) spoke of the rapid mobilization of nurses following the earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan on March 11. She explained that while the JNA had had a disaster system in place since the 1995 Kobe earthquake, this disaster, followed by the widespread destruction from the tsunami, was unprecedented.

“We could not imagine this,” she said. […]

2016-11-21T13:13:18-05:00May 6th, 2011|Nursing|5 Comments
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Nurses Taking Care of Business on a Global Scale

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Since many readers may not know about international nursing, here’s a primer (for those who are interested) that provides some context for my upcoming blog posts from the International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting in Malta (accompanied by some photos of the city from my morning bus ride). […]

2016-11-21T13:13:18-05:00May 5th, 2011|Nursing|7 Comments
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Notes of a Student Nurse: A Dose of Reality

By Jennifer-Clare Williams, who is a student at Cox College of Nursing and Health Sciences in Springfield, Missouri. This is her first post for this blog.

It’s been said before that we are our own worst enemies, our own worst critics. I can’t imagine a time when these phrases are truer than during nursing school. Little more than a year ago, when I was starting my prerequisites for admission to the BSN nursing program, I was giddy with excitement. Images of what life would be like played in my head like episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, or, on a day I was feeling a bit more goofy, reruns of Scrubs.

I took any opportunity I had to share with friends, family—even new apartment neighbors—that I was well on my way to nursing school with the confident smile of a person destined to save the world, one patient at a time. I scoured discussion boards and nursing student forums late into the night, anticipating the day that I, too, would have something profound to contribute.

I laughed off those who warned me that the path was difficult and ridden with challenges. There was no bridge I couldn’t cross, no task I couldn’t do, and no test I couldn’t pass with flying […]

2016-11-21T13:13:19-05:00May 4th, 2011|career, students|19 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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