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A Chorus of Nursing Voices and the Timeless Truths of Ancient Tragedy

Nurses’ yearning to be supported and seen as human beings.

Fluorescent lights flicker. A relentless symphony of beeps and alarms, the scent of disinfectant wipes seeping through the fibers of a surgical mask. Keystrokes on keyboards keep charts in check while medications are meticulously prepared: the science of nursing, a 24/7, 365-day dance of care. In stolen moments of quiet—in empty locker rooms or bathroom stalls—the weight of the workload settles. Tears well up in eyes etched with exhaustion under the crushing burden of impossible patient ratios, the sting of disrespect from colleague and patient.

Nurses are classified as hospital overhead, a line item on a spreadsheet, and our humanity is rarely considered. A stolen sip of water during a 12-hour shift is a luxury. Bathroom breaks are a gamble, the ever-present fear that a patient’s need, a monitor’s alarm, or a desperate call for help will erupt the moment we look away. We are the invisible safety net, the unwavering presence, the nurse at your bedside.

Behind our dedication to our profession lies many unspoken truths. We function within a system that depends on our commitment yet has not committed to us and seems to forget the high price we pay for such loyalty. Though we are expected to quietly color […]

2024-05-08T09:27:02-04:00May 8th, 2024|Nursing|1 Comment
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What’s Really Causing America’s Obesity Crisis?

Overeating doesn’t cause obesity. Obesity causes overeating.”
–Dr. Lee Kaplan, Harvard University

Obesity is a disease.

Image created by OpenAI’s ChatGPT with DALL-E.

We see it everywhere, the very real and ongoing obesity pandemic. This pernicious disease now affects nearly half of the adults in this country, including those on both sides of the hospital bed rails, bringing with it over 200 associated complications and morbidities.

Obesity first became common in America during the last decades of the 20th century; since then its prevalence has only accelerated. Our youth have not been spared, with one in six children and one in four adolescents currently affected.

Despite what we see, many fail to recognize obesity as a true disease with complicated origins. The misguided and reductive idea that behaviors such as eating too much and moving too little are the predominant factors in risk and causation of obesity perpetuates the belief that those suffering with this devastating disease have an underlying character flaw such as gluttony, laziness, or lack of willpower. This in turn propagates societal and medical bias, leading to patient shaming and delayed obesity interventions.

While there’s no standard definition of obesity, it can be aptly […]

2024-04-23T09:49:01-04:00April 22nd, 2024|Nursing, Public health|2 Comments
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Walking the Path of Service: DNP Students Provide Foot Care for the Unhoused

TCU nurse practitioner students. “The importance of foot care for this population cannot be overstated.”

In the heart of the Fort Worth, Texas, community, where the daily struggles of people without housing are vividly evident, a group of doctor of nursing practice (DNP) nurse practitioner (NP) students from Texas Christian University (TCU) has embarked on a journey to make a difference. Through the foot clinic initiative in partnership with True Worth Place, a day shelter for people without housing, they’ve established hope and healing with a compassionate service.

The initiative began in early 2018, following a vision from the leadership at True Worth Place. They conceived of a service where basic yet often neglected aspects of personal health—such as foot care—could be addressed. The idea evolved to include volunteers washing the feet of the guests, which extended to providing the guests vitally important medical services like foot assessments and nail care.

TCU faculty and NP students

Eager to serve, a handful of DNP NP students […]

2024-04-15T11:02:29-04:00April 15th, 2024|Nursing, Public health, volunteering|1 Comment
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Creating a Disaster Simulation for Nursing Students

A nursing student treats a volunteer acting as a disaster victim during a high-fidelity simulation at the University of South Carolina Aiken Convocation Center. Photo courtesy of the authors.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the United States “there were 28 weather and climate disasters in 2023, surpassing the previous record of 22 in 2020.” With the number of disasters increasing in recent years, preparedness is crucial.

Many simulationists may believe that creating a disaster simulation is complicated, expensive, and requires a lot of resources. The opposite is true if you have enough support from your organization and community. The only cost incurred during our disaster management simulation project for nursing students at our institution was the cost of make-up to create realistic wounds.

Finding a gap in student knowledge.

The first thing we did was to perform a needs assessment. We knew that our students were not well prepared in our program for caring for patients during a disaster. In the past, this area of content was never really addressed in our curriculum. As we were working […]

2024-04-08T12:03:27-04:00April 8th, 2024|disaster preparedness, Nursing, Nursing education, Public health, simulation|0 Comments
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The Many Ways Nurses Can Become Champions of Sustainability

Putting concerns about the environment into practice.

Matthew Lindsley

Matthew Lindsley, MPH, MSN, RN, PHNA-BC, is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and is engaged in clinical trials as an oncology nurse at the National Institutes of Health. He spends his weekends working the soil, caring for animals, and volunteering with a sustainable agriculture initiative to improve the quality and resiliency of local food systems in his community. He is one of a growing legion of nurses who are putting their concerns about the environment into action both inside and outside the workplace.

Our AJN Reports article in the April edition of the American Journal of Nursing, “Nurses Step Up to Address Climate Change and Health,” profiles nurses like Lindsley who are researching the effects of rising temperatures on farmworkers, educating the public about air quality, advocating for policy change, and reducing the waste and emissions generated by the health care sector. The nurses in the article speak about their work and why nurses are well suited to tackle environmental challenges.

Farmer, nurse, researcher, connector.

Lindsley—or “Farmer Matt,” as colleagues know him—is currently pursuing a doctorate at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public […]

2024-04-02T09:27:43-04:00April 2nd, 2024|environmental health, Nursing|0 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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