About Corinne McSpedon, senior editor

AJN senior editor

School Nurses Teaching Lifesaving Skills to Children

A scary moment in the home.

One weekend morning, my then-six-year-old son ran into the kitchen holding a half-eaten piece of fruit and looking panicked. He and his brothers had just finished eating breakfast before rushing off to play a game in the next room. Only a faint wheeze emerged when my son tried to breathe. He was choking.

Years earlier, my husband and I had taken a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid class for new parents taught by paramedics and nurses at our local community center. We immediately used techniques we’d practiced in that class to successfully dislodge the food, and our son recovered fully. That long-ago instruction had not only given us the knowledge needed to clear our son’s airway but also the confidence to do so calmly during a frightening moment.

A 4th-grader learns proper technique for chest compressions and how to use an AED. Photo by Dulce Rodriguez.

Collaborating with the community to empower students.

In our May issue In Our Community column, nurses in the Klein Independent School District in Harris County, Texas, describe how they have been instilling this combination of […]

2022-09-01T08:29:18-04:00September 1st, 2022|Nursing, Public health, school nurses|0 Comments
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What Is Long COVID?

There are still many unknowns, but the need for comprehensive care is clear.

“There are days I don’t have any issues. Then I have terrible palpitations, or I’m short of breath when I walk. I think there’ll be long-term effects, I’m just not 100% sure what they’ll be.”

This is how one nurse with long COVID describes her symptoms—more than two years after initially contracting the virus—and the uncertainty that goes along with it. Her experience is highlighted in the July AJN Reports, “Long COVID: What We Know Now.”

Few definitive answers.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Each wave of COVID infections results in more people not fully recovering from the acute illness. Instead, they experience a range of ongoing and new symptoms that vary in severity and duration.

Whether their symptoms are called long COVID, postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, or post-COVID conditions, the reality is the same: there are few definitive answers about long COVID’s risk factors, causes, and effects.

Multidisciplinary care.

What is known, as the article discusses, is that it’s beneficial for patients to access a post-COVID care program in which a multidisciplinary team provides ongoing clinical evaluation, individualized treatment, and support services.

“The best thing you can do for a patient is get them involved […]

2022-07-20T10:11:25-04:00July 20th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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A Long History of Abortion

Looking to the past for context and perspective as the U.S. abortion care landscape changes dramatically.

The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade ended women’s nationwide legal right to abortion after nearly 50 years.

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

Several states with so-called trigger laws banning abortion moved to implement these immediately. Although some of these laws have since been challenged in court, within a few months it’s expected that women living in about half the states will have very limited or no access to abortion care. Most of these laws—predominantly in the Midwest, South, and Plains states—make no exception for rape or to safeguard a woman’s health, until she is at risk of death.

Limiting health care access amid rising maternal mortality rates.

These restrictions on women’s health care occur while the U.S. continues to have a maternal mortality rate much higher than in other developed nations. According to the latest statistics from the CDC, this rate is rising, and health disparities persist: Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes compared with White women.

Women who have historically been most marginalized will be disproportionately affected by the Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected to […]

2022-07-11T06:31:54-04:00July 11th, 2022|Public health, women's health|0 Comments
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Taking Stock of the Nursing Profession as the Pandemic Weakens Its Hold

Projected nursing shortages by 2026, by state. Click image to expand.

Exhaustion and burnout. Insufficient workplace protections. The growth of contract nursing. A lack of minimum staffing ratios.

These and other issues have been important nursing topics since long before the pandemic. But as the essential work of nurses has come under a brighter spotlight during the COVID crisis, headlines and news stories have been increasingly highlighting these important topics, providing wider recognition of nurses’ experiences and concerns.

In just the past week, a sampling of headlines from across the country show how nursing workforce issues are taking center stage, from insufficient workplace protections in California to state legislatures considering capping travel nurses’ pay in Missouri to workforce shortages in Pennsylvania to unsafe working conditions in Maine.

Liz Seegert explores where the profession stands as the country enters the third year of the COVID pandemic in the February AJN Reports, “The Current State of Nursing.” She notes the results of recent surveys, including one by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses that looked at how the pandemic has affected nursing.

“Exhaustion, frustration, anger, burnout, depression, and fear for their own and […]

2022-03-07T09:52:15-05:00March 7th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Nurses Who Spread Misinformation: Motives, Ethics, and Remedies

A historically challenging problem presents ‘an urgent task for the nursing profession.’

“Every epidemic of the past has produced improbable facts, confusing rumors, and conspiracy theories,” observed Nancy Tomes, PhD, a history professor at Stony Brook University. She was presenting a lecture at an online meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine in late October. Tomes examined the way misinformation and disinformation during the current pandemic echoes that of past public health crises, from the 1665 outbreak of the bubonic plague in London to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.

“Misinformation, epidemics, and media revolutions have historically gone hand in hand,” she pointed out, adding:

“One of the most distressing aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the damage done by the easy circulation of false and misleading information.”

Social media as a vector for the spread of misinformation.

The widespread dissemination of such information during the current crisis has been facilitated by the near-omnipresence of social media. This month’s Ethical Issues column in AJN focuses on the way some nurses are engaging in misinformation about COVID on social media (and other) platforms. In “Nurses Spreading Misinformation” (free until January 15), author Pamela Grace, PhD, RN, FAAN, argues that immediate action and education are needed.

“Correcting unethical behavior on social media is an urgent […]

2022-01-05T12:00:17-05:00January 5th, 2022|Nursing|2 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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