Amy M. Collins, managing editor, Author at Off the Charts

Future Nurses—No Shrinking Violets

Thelma Schorr and Kathryn Brownfield

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I had the opportunity to meet several members of the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA) board of directors when they were here in New York for a board meeting. As is custom, NSNA chief executive officer Diane Mancino invites many of the NSNA sponsors and supporters to dinner to meet the new board.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kathryn Brownfield, the nursing student editor of Imprint, the NSNA’s official publication. She’s a nursing student at Nash Community College in North Carolina. We sat with Thelma Schorr, AJN’s former editor and publisher (and a consulting editor at Imprint) and Florence Huey, a former editor of AJN and of Geriatric Nursing (and a former president of the NSNA). It was like homecoming!

I was impressed—as I always seem to be—with these aspiring nurses. Many of them are second-degree students and come into nursing with work experience, a family, and a maturity that was lacking in my cohort, which was largely younger, right out of high school, with little work experience.

I wonder how these nursing students will fare in their first nursing jobs. One hears a lot about bullying and lateral violence and how it’s driving some new nurses away. I can’t imagine any of the students I met being cowed by overbearing coworkers.

In November, NSNA will host its mid-year conference, which typically draws 1,500 attendees; this year, it will […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:11-05:00June 24th, 2013|career, nursing perspective, students|2 Comments

Evidence-Based Interventions That Improve Maternal and Child Nutrition

On June 8, in London, presidents, prime ministers, businesspeople, and philanthropists came together to sign the Global Nutrition for Growth Compact. The event, hosted by the governments of Brazil and the U.K. and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, resulted in commitments to accelerate progress toward improving nutrition for children and mothers around the globe.

In London’s Hyde Park, activists laid a carpet of flower petals to represent the lives of children lost each year through malnutrition. Photo by Ismar Badzic via Flickr.

Simultaneously, the Lancet published its second paper in a series on maternal and child nutrition. The authors of the study estimate that poor nutrition is the root cause of 45% of child deaths (3.1 million deaths among children under age five each year).

The report builds on a similar report from 2008 and highlights the progress achieved since then. For example, the number of the world’s children who never grow to their potential height has dropped steadily over the past two decades, from more than 253 million in 1990 to 167 million in 2010.

But according to the new report, far more can still be done. The authors estimate that close to 15% of all deaths in children under five can be prevented, and at least a fifth of all stunting avoided, if […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:17-05:00June 17th, 2013|Nursing|0 Comments

AJN’s June Issue: Fracking, Assessing Sleep in Teens, Preventing CAUTI, More

AJN’s June issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Fracking hazards. Though we’re moving into summer, our cover does not depict a jar of fresh, local honey. It is a photograph of Washington County, Pennsylvania, resident Jenny Smitzer, holding a jar of contaminated tap water that turned that color after natural gas drilling began in 2005 above her farm. Even the best water filter jug can’t purify this. Eleven U.S. states currently engage in natural gas hydrofracking (“fracking”), and eight more are either considering or preparing for this method of gas drilling.

For an in-depth look at the potential health hazards caused by fracking, such as air pollution, working hazards, and water pollution, see our Environments and Health article, “Fracking, the Environment, and Health.” If you’re reading AJN on your iPad, you can listen to a podcast interview with the authors by clicking on the podcast icon on the first page of the article. The podcast is also available on our Web site.

Most teens get far less than the nine hours of sleep a night they require, which could affect their mental and physical health. An understanding of sleep physiology is essential to helping nurses better assess and manage sleep deprivation in teens. “Assessing Sleep in Adolescents Through a Better Understanding of Sleep Physiology” provides an overview of sleep physiology, describes sleep changes […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-12-17T14:39:29-05:00May 24th, 2013|Nursing|0 Comments

Dispatch #2 from Melbourne: Dues, Election Results, Nursing at the WHO

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Melbourne, Australia

There’s lots happening at the International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting and I’ve logged more walking miles here in Melbourne in the last two days than I do in a week at home. Judith Shamian

On Monday, the Council of National Representatives (CNR), the ICN’s governing body, announced election results. Judith Shamian, a well-known Canadian nursing leader, was elected the 27th president of the ICN. (For more information about Judith and other election results, read this press release.)

The CNR also agreed to address issues related to membership models and will move forward with a plan designed to support inclusiveness and membership growth in national associations. The plan also includes a tiered voting model that takes membership and percentage of membership into account. (The final vote will take place at the 2015 Congress). Rosemary Bryant

New dues scheme: […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:32-05:00May 21st, 2013|career|2 Comments

Winding Down Nurses Week 2013

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

We’d be remiss not to mention Florence Nightingale during Nurses Week, especially since her birthday marks the end of the celebration. (She was born on May 12, 1820.) I often wonder what this visionary would be like if she were a nurse today—my bet is she would be a PhD and FAAN, and conducting multinational outcomes research related to nursing-sensitive indicators with grants from the Royal College of Nursing and the AARP/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Campaign for Nursing!

Nightingale never wrote for AJN, but there are some 200 stories and mentions of her in our archives. We thought we’d mark the close of Nurses Week with a comment from AJN’s founding editor, Sophia Palmer, on the occasion of Nightingale’s death in 1910. Here’s an excerpt, or read the original piece in our archives (free until next week on AJN‘s Web site).

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:36-05:00May 10th, 2013|Nursing|0 Comments

About Amy M. Collins, managing editor

Future Nurses—No Shrinking Violets

Share this:

Like this:

Evidence-Based Interventions That Improve Maternal and Child Nutrition

Share this:

Like this:

AJN’s June Issue: Fracking, Assessing Sleep in Teens, Preventing CAUTI, More

Share this:

Like this:

Dispatch #2 from Melbourne: Dues, Election Results, Nursing at the WHO

Share this:

Like this:

Winding Down Nurses Week 2013

Share this:

Like this: