About Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor

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

When Good Nurses Make Mistakes

The next day, as I prepared my medication tray with shaking hands, two physicians sat at the nurses’ station, talking too loudly as they discussed the medication error and wondered which nurse had made it. Overhearing them, I turned to confess, feeling like a marked woman. They muttered something in my direction, shook their heads, and quickly returned to their charting.

That’s an excerpt from fairly late in “Roger’s Angst,” the Reflections essay in the April issue of AJN. It explores the crippling shame, anxiety, and self-doubt that good nurses can feel when they make mistakes. And it suggests that no one, however conscientious they may be, is free from error in a long career—though few ever reveal their little secrets, even if we might all gain from the knowledge. A touchy subject, to say the least; we hope you’ll read the entire essay and consider weighing in with your own experience. Anonymous comments are, as always, fine.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

2016-11-21T13:13:31-05:00April 15th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Nursing and Women’s Basketball Go Back a Long Way

Nursing Student Basketball Team, Grace Hospital, Detroit, 1924

By Maureen ‘Shawn’ Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I’m a big college basketball fan (to me, professional teams seem less about the team and more about the players). When I was growing up in the city, playground basketball was the only sport that was accessible on a daily basis. (OK, there was a ping-pong table, but that just didn’t seem as exciting.) I learned to play the game there, and then played in high school and for one year in college as a freshman. After that, nursing classes and a part-time job interfered. More recently, I coached grammar school and middle school girls teams (one of the funnest things I’ve done!).

I love that the women’s NCAA college basketball tournament has received more and more coverage each year. A few years ago, one was hard-pressed to find out when the games were being televised. Now, they’re enjoying prime time, if not a prime channel. (Women’s games—and tonight’s championship game between Notre Dame and Texas A&M—are usually broadcast on cable, on ESPN.)

So here’s some trivia: many people may not know that most nursing schools had basketball teams in their early days—as far back as the 1920s. It’s always been interesting to me that, despite the oppressive and convent-like restrictions placed on nursing students, these young women could play basketball! There were leagues among schools—the AJN archives has articles and photos of early teams (the photo above shows the team […]

2016-11-21T13:13:36-05:00April 5th, 2011|Nursing|0 Comments
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Vampire Nurses, PhDs, Your Best Moment as a Nurse: Today’s Notes from the Nursosphere

Here are some recent posts of interest we noticed on the nursing blogs. Many of these blogs can actually be found on our blogroll, so we hope you’re exploring what’s there from time to time, even if we know the list isn’t exhaustive and is probably missing some other excellent (and at least somewhat frequently updated) blogs.

It’s good to know that Will, the nurse/comic artist who shares his drawings at Drawing on Experience, has started posting again more regularly. One of his most recent efforts depicts a night shift nurse as a kind of vampire. It’s funny and, in a way, insightful. We give just a thumbnail version of it below on the right, in the interests of preserving the artist’s copyright; to see it enlarged, click the image and visit the version posted on his site, where you can also find a bunch more drawings, many about his life as a relatively new nurse. 

The INQRI Blog (that INQRI stands for Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative, a real mouthful) has a new post about an increase in enrollment in nursing doctorate programs. Here’s an excerpt:

According to new data released recently by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), enrollment in doctoral nursing programs increased significantly in 2010. The AACN believes that this shows a strong interest in both research-focused and practice-focused doctorates.

The post also connects […]

2016-11-21T13:13:39-05:00March 30th, 2011|career, students|1 Comment
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Feeling Just Beachy

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I wrote a post here about the feeling of well-being—what it is, how it’s measured, and whether or not nurses often experience it. I guess writing the post struck a chord with me. I sometimes (often) feel overwhelmed with responsibilities at work and home and wish there was more time for fun, rejuvenating activities, and relaxing with friends. With this in mind, I decided to accept an invitation from friends to come for a visit.

My husband and I took a leisurely two-hour drive on Saturday down to see old friends at their new home on a New Jersey barrier island, one block from the ocean. Although it was a very cold day, the sun was shining in a bright, blue, cloudless sky. We decided to brave the wind and bundled up and headed out for a walk on the beach. 

The air had that salty-sun smell and the wind was blowing enough to make the water choppy and full of whitecaps—it was gorgeous and exhilarating, and we tramped about for an hour. Later, we headed out again, this time to wander around the point at the south end of the island, where migratory birds and turtle nests were protected. Nothing like an ocean wind to clear your head!

A good meal, some catch-up conversations and laughs—it was a fabulous day. At times, I could still hear that nagging part of my brain saying, “What about those e-mails you need to get out?” and “You have to […]

2016-11-21T13:13:40-05:00March 28th, 2011|nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Are You a Well Being?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

A tweet from the UK’s Nursing Times recently caught my eye. It was directing Twitter followers to a post on its Web site, asking what “well-being” meant to them. The post discusses the work life vs. home life seesaw and whether readers’ chosen careers leave them time to enjoy other aspects of life. There’s actually a national well-being debate in the UK, where the Office for National Statistics is seeking public input in developing new measures of national well-being.

We measure well-being here in the U.S. too, with the CDC’s measures of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) index. While noting that “there is no consensus around a general definition of well-being,” the CDC sketches the concept of well-being in the following way:

“. . . at minimum, well-being includes the presence of positive emotions and moods (e.g., contentment, happiness), the absence of negative emotions (e.g., depression, anxiety), satisfaction with life, fulfillment and positive functioning. In simple terms, well-being can be described as judging life positively and feeling good. . . . physical well-being (e.g., feeling very healthy and full of energy) is also viewed as critical to overall well-being.”

Most people I know say they’re working harder than they ever did before. I see single parents and don’t know how they work full-time, deal with childrens’ schedules and needs, and make time for themselves. (I guess mostly they don’t—especially the part about making time for […]

2016-11-21T13:13:41-05:00March 23rd, 2011|career, nursing perspective|12 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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