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

AJN in August: Oral Histories of African Nurses, Opioid Abuse, Misplaced Enteral Tubes, More

On this month’s cover, a community nurse practices health education with residents of a small fishing village in rural Uganda. Former AJN clinical managing editor Karen Roush took the photo in a small community center made of dried mud bricks, wood, and straw.

According to Roush, nurses wrote the lessons out on poster-sized sheets of white paper and tacked them to the mud wall as they addressed topics like personal hygiene, sanitation, food safety, communication, and prevention of infectious diseases. The reality of nursing in Africa is explored this month in “‘I Am a Nurse’: Oral Histories of African Nurses,” original research that shares African nurse leaders’ stories so we may better understand nursing from their perspective.

Some other articles of note in the August issue:

CE feature: A major source of diverted opioid prescription medications is from friends and family members with legitimate prescriptions. “Nurses’ Role in Preventing Prescription Opioid Diversion” describes three potential interventions in which nurses play a critical role to help prevent opioid diversion.

From our Safety Monitor column: More than 1.2 million enteral feeding tubes are placed annually in the United States. While the practice is usually safe, serious complications can occur. “Misplacements of Enteral Feeding Tubes Increase After Hospitals Switch Brands,” a report from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, reviews cases of misplaced tubes and offers guidance for how […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:11-05:00August 3rd, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research, patient engagement|0 Comments

The Huddle: A New Mother’s Experience of Discharge Planning

By Amy M. Collins, AJN managing editor

By John Martinez Pavliga/Flickr Creative Commons

Three months ago, I gave birth to my first child under somewhat traumatic circumstances. After a fast and furious labor onset, I was all set to be given an epidural when I was informed the baby’s heart rate had dropped dramatically and I needed to have an emergency C-section. Thankfully, everything turned out okay, and my son was born healthy.

Nurses changed shifts every 12 hours during my four-day hospital stay, and each of them provided excellent care. They spent massive amounts of time with me, helping me to get up and walk around, showing me how to expertly swaddle my baby like a burrito, and even helping me get the hang of feeding my child.

On my last day, two nurses were assigned to get me ready for my discharge. They had tons of printed information for me on postnatal care, wound care, postpartum depression, etc. I was told by one of the nurses that we were going to now have a “mother–child huddle.” She then said to the other nurse, with what I took to be a little irony in her tone, “Are you ready for the mother–child huddle?” Curious, I asked why the emphasis on the word.

“I just think the word ‘huddle’ is silly,” she said, […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:18-05:00July 10th, 2015|Nursing, patient engagement, patient experience, Patients|3 Comments

May AJN: A-Fib and Epilepsy Updates, an Ethics Collection, Diversity, Resolving Conflict, More

AJN0515.Cover.2nd AJN’s May issue is now available on our Web site. And in honor of the upcoming Nurses Week, we are offering free access to the entire issue for the month of May. In addition, because the American Nurses Association has designated this the “Year of Ethics” and the theme of this year’s Nurses Week is “Ethical Practice, Quality Care,” we have also made available a collection of some of our top ethics articles from 1925 to the present. Here’s a selection of what else not to miss in our May issue.

Atrial fibrillation adversely affects the quality of life of millions of people, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality and health care costs. Our CE feature, “Atrial Fibrillation: Updated Management Guidelines and Nursing Implications,” reviews the recently updated guideline for the management of atrial fibrillation and stresses how nursing intervention in patient education and transition of care can improve outcomes. This feature offers 3 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article.

Epilepsy is a serious neurologic disease that affects around 2.2 million people in the U.S. “Epilepsy Update, Part 1: Refining Our Understanding of a Complex Disease,” the first in a two-part CE series, discusses new research on the causes of epilepsy, new definitions that are changing the ways we evaluate the disease, and the psychosocial […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:40-05:00April 24th, 2015|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments

Have You Fallen Prey to a Predatory Publisher?

Predatory publishers promise prompt, easy publication. The hidden charges come later, as well as the realization that the journal has no real standing or quality control. Not only is this bad for potential authors, it’s bad for knowledge, flooding the market with inferior information made to superficially resemble the information you need.

Imagine this scenario: You receive an email from a seemingly respectable journal inviting you to submit a paper for publication. You’ve wanted to publish on this topic for some time, and this journal promises you a quick review and publication within a few months. As a new author, you are thrilled . . . that is, until you get charged an outrageous processing fee upon turning the article in. You’ve just fallen victim to a predatory publisher.

Unfortunately, this scenario is becoming all too common. These journals are often difficult to spot, with their professional-looking Web sites and names that sound legitimate, if a little vague. In fact, just recently at AJN, we stumbled across a Web site featuring a journal that looked a lot like ours and had a very similar name. (Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado, has been tracking predatory publishers since 2009 and maintains a list of them on his Web site, Scholarly Open Access.)

In our April issue, editor-in-chief […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:43-05:00April 6th, 2015|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

AJN in April: Deep Breathing for Dialysis Patients, Isolation Care, Sleep Loss in Nurses, More

On our cover this month is Pablo Picasso’s Le Rêve (The Dream). We chose this portrait of a woman in a restful pose to highlight the importance of proper sleep to a person’s overall health and well-being. Unfortunately, not many Americans are able to get the proper amount of rest. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimates that 50 to 70 million U.S. adults have chronic sleep and wakefulness disorders—and nurses are not immune.

Between long shifts and the stressful nature of their jobs, nurses are especially vulnerable to not getting an adequate amount of quality sleep. Fatigue from lack of sleep may diminish the quality of nursing care. Sleep loss has been linked to impaired learning, memory, and judgment and is also associated with a slew of chronic diseases. This month’s CE feature, “The Potential Effects of Sleep Loss on a Nurse’s Health,” describes the acute and chronic effects of sleep loss on nurses, strategies nurses can use to improve the quality of their sleep, and institutional policies that can promote good rest and recuperation.

This feature offers 2 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article. You can further explore this topic by listening to a podcast interview with the author (this and other free podcasts are accessible via the Behind the Article podcasts page on our Web site, in our iPad […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:02:46-05:00March 27th, 2015|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

About Amy M. Collins, managing editor

AJN in August: Oral Histories of African Nurses, Opioid Abuse, Misplaced Enteral Tubes, More

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The Huddle: A New Mother’s Experience of Discharge Planning

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May AJN: A-Fib and Epilepsy Updates, an Ethics Collection, Diversity, Resolving Conflict, More

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Have You Fallen Prey to a Predatory Publisher?

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AJN in April: Deep Breathing for Dialysis Patients, Isolation Care, Sleep Loss in Nurses, More

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