About Guest Author

This author has not yet filled in any details.
So far Guest Author has created 495 blog entries.

Early Male Caregivers and the Long History of Men in Nursing

A profession that keeps “rediscovering” men

Men remain a minority in nursing. In the United States, men made up only 2.7% of registered nurses in 1970 and 9.6% in 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. More recent workforce data suggest that men now account for about 10% to 12% of registered nurses. As noted in an American Association of Colleges of Nursing fact sheet, data from the National Nursing Workforce Survey showed that the proportion of male RNs reached 11.2% in 2022 before adjusting slightly downward to 10.4% in 2024. These numbers explain why male nurses may still be read as exceptions. A patient sees a man in scrubs and assumes he is the physician. A male nursing student notices he is one of only a few men in the classroom. A hospital celebrates men entering nursing as a “new trend.”

Yet the increase of men in modern nursing should not be taken to imply they are newcomers to the profession. Men have been present in nursing’s story since its inception, even when later histories forgot to name them or, arguably, chose to ignore them.

The problem is partly historical language. The modern word “nurse” suggests licensure, registration, scope of practice, and a […]

2026-06-12T11:38:22-04:00May 26th, 2026|Nursing|1 Comment
Read More

Helping Patients Live Inside Changing Realities

Why earlier palliative care conversations matter in oncology nursing

Image of oncology nurse and a patient discussing palliative care options in a warm and supportive settingOne patient I still think about came in frequently for supportive care visits. Technically, the appointments were straightforward. She was there for things like IV fluids or symptom management. But her visits were rarely simple. She had questions about labs, treatment side effects, fatigue, and what different changes in her body meant. Over time, our conversations expanded beyond the immediate medical task in front of us.

She talked about how much harder everyday life had become. She tired easily. Walking longer distances became difficult. She was losing independence in ways that frightened her. Eventually, we began talking about mobility aids. She did not want a walker or wheelchair. To her, they represented loss.

I remember trying to reframe the conversation. I told her that using a walker did not mean she had stopped living fully. If being outdoors mattered to her, then the goal was not preserving the image of how she used to move through the world. The goal was helping her continue participating in the parts of life she still loved. A wheelchair might allow her to […]

2026-05-19T12:02:50-04:00May 19th, 2026|Nursing, Oncology nursing, Palliative care|0 Comments
Read More

Nurses Know Safety Can’t Depend on Assumptions

In health care, we are trained not to rely on assumptions. We build systems that anticipate risk, standardize response, and make the next step clear before it is needed. When something goes wrong, we do not improvise. We follow a plan that already exists.

This is why it is so striking to encounter environments where safety depends almost entirely on assumption.

The tragic example of AED accessibility.

I began thinking about this outside of health care. I came to this through someone I know, John Ellsessar, whose life has been shaped by loss. His son, Michael, died at 16 after suffering sudden cardiac arrest on a high school football field where an AED was not immediately accessible.

That experience changed what he did next. It also changed how I think about a question that often goes unasked: What is the plan when something goes wrong?

Consider sudden cardiac arrest. It is one of the few situations in medicine where the response is both straightforward and time-dependent.

When John explained it to me, he put it simply: A heart attack is a plumbing problem, a blocked artery.
Sudden cardiac arrest is an electrical problem. The heart’s rhythm stops. […]

2026-05-15T13:18:43-04:00April 27th, 2026|Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
Read More

What’s in the Air? Rethinking Airflow and Infection Risk in Health Care

Image generated using Google’s Nano Banana 2, 4/20/26.

For nurses, environmental infection prevention is often framed around visible conditions such as high-touch surfaces, shared equipment, and visible dirt. In my experience, airflow and ventilation are not topics that receive significant emphasis in nursing education or orientation. While this may vary by setting, many nurses are left to learn these concepts in practice rather than through formal training.

With the recent COVID-19 and measles outbreaks, there has been more focused attention placed on contaminated air as a risk to patient safety. In my work with health care teams across settings, I’ve found that while nurses are highly attuned to cleaning and disinfection practices, airflow and ventilation are often assumed to be “handled” by the facility operations staff. In reality, these systems depend heavily on how the environment is used at the bedside. Small, routine actions—like leaving a door open or introducing a fan—can unintentionally disrupt carefully designed controls.

This gap in awareness among clinical staff matters. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to report progress in reducing health care-associated infections (HAIs), these infections remain at a persistent risk for patients. Expanding the nurse’s focus on the environment […]

2026-04-22T12:32:28-04:00April 21st, 2026|infection control, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
Read More

Beyond ‘This Is How We Do It’: Teaching Nurses to Think Critically About Practice

A nurse I was orienting asked a question that stopped me.

“Why do we have to wait for a current type and screen before ordering red blood cells, but not platelets?”

It was the kind of question that should have a clear answer. She wasn’t new to nursing, just new to our unit, which made it land differently. This wasn’t inexperience. It was a fresh perspective on a practice I had stopped questioning.

I had a general understanding. I knew that red blood cells carry the antigens most likely to trigger clinically significant antibody formation, and that ensuring compatibility before transfusion is critical. Platelets, by comparison, are less likely to require the same level of matching in routine situations. But when I tried to explain it clearly and completely, I hesitated.

My first instinct was to simplify the answer: “That’s just how we do it.” I paused before saying it out loud. Although the practice made sense to me, I had never examined it in a way that I could confidently teach, explain, or connect back to policy.

The question exposed a gap between practice, policy, and understanding. It also raised something larger: how often do we follow practices we can’t fully explain, document, or defend?

This experience highlighted a broader issue […]

2026-04-15T09:24:30-04:00April 13th, 2026|Nursing, questions of practice|0 Comments
Read More

Comment ground rules

1. Please be respectful.
2. We moderate all comments.

Content disclaimer

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.
Go to Top