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How Can You Bear to Be a Nurse? A Classic Question Revisited

In 1987, Mary Mallison, editor of AJN, posed a provocative question in her editorial: “How can you bear to be a nurse?” She offered several questions that the public often asks nurses, and provided clever (and sometimes powerful) responses that nurses could use to correct the public’s misunderstanding. A few examples:

How can you be a nurse? How can you bear the sight of blood?
Wait until you slide a catheter into a tiny vein just before it collapses. The flashback of blood you see will make you sing.

How can you be a nurse? How can you bear the sight and smell of feces?
Wait until you’ve been anxious about the diarrhea that nothing has stopped in an AIDS patient. Finally, your strategies work and you see and smell normal stool. You’ll welcome that smell.

How can you be a nurse? So many of your patients are so old, so sick, these days. How can you bear the thought that, in the end, your care may make no difference?
Wait until you’ve used your hands and eyes and voice to dispel terror, to show a helpless person that his life is respected, that he has dignity. Your caring helps him […]

2021-12-21T10:20:52-05:00December 21st, 2021|Nursing|2 Comments
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What Have We Learned About Preventing School Shootings?

On November 30, a 15-year-old sophomore at Oxford High School in Michigan killed four students and injured seven others. Both the student and his parents are presently incarcerated and charged with numerous crimes.

In the days following this tragic event, questions arose regarding what the parents and school might have done to prevent this from happening. The parents are facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and a federal lawsuit, perhaps the first of others to follow, has been filed against the school district alleging that more could have and should have been done.

Warning signs and preventive actions.

With each school shooting we again find ourselves asking ourselves what can be learned in terms of warning signs and actions that could be taken. The September Mental Health Matters column in AJN, which I co-authored with Arlene Holmes—whose son James was responsible for the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012—highlighted warning signs that might indicate potential violence by someone experiencing mental health problems.

What can be learned from the events that unfolded in Oxford that could be applied to a similar scenario, perhaps heading off another tragedy? The following checklist compiled by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate youth to prevent gun […]

2021-12-15T11:43:26-05:00December 15th, 2021|mental illness, Nursing|0 Comments
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Therapeutic Humor in Nursing: More Important Than Ever

Nursing during a pandemic is no laughing matter…but it was for me.

Photo by Mathias Konrath on Unsplash

Assessing mental health patients over the phone at the VA was always challenging. I worked with the primary care providers, assessing new patients and getting them the right mental health resources.

Little did I know it was going to be taken to another level during the pandemic. It was Covid mental health mayhem: Covid cold calls, suicidal calls, PTSD patients plummeting with increased isolation and hospitalizations. There was increased depression, anxiety, and insomnia (and that was just the RN staff members, LOL!).

I couldn’t control this pandemic, my frustration over anti-vaxxers, the fatigue, fears, or sadness. But what I realized I could control was my daily interactions with the patients. I had to do review the PHQ-9 questionnaire for major depression symptoms and the GAD for anxiety. Once I’d finished the mental health assessments, I’d concentrate on the behavioral activation their results suggested.

Cultivating patient connection through laughter.

Having taken part in research on the therapeutic benefits of humor, one strategy I often used with these patients was to ask them, “What made you laugh today?”

At first, many couldn’t think of anything. So I decided to ask about more specific subjects […]

2021-12-01T08:29:30-05:00December 1st, 2021|Nursing|2 Comments
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States Seek to Limit Health Officials’ Powers to Act

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, public health measures to control the spread of the virus have provoked fierce debate. In recent months, at least 15 state legislatures have passed or are considering bills to limit the legal authority of public health agencies, according to the Network for Public Health Law, which has partnered with the National Association of County and City Health Officials to document the situation. In addition, lawmakers in at least 46 states have introduced bills to rein in the power of governors to take action in public health and other emergencies.

The anger fueling these actions stems from the perceived overreach by health officials, resulting in a backlash of legislative attempts to limit their authority. These include measures to prevent the closure of businesses or allow lawmakers to rescind mask mandates.

In addition, some state courts have limited the emergency and regulatory powers that governors used to respond to the pandemic. Demands for “individual freedom” spurred some of these state actions, though their consequences are likely to be more far reaching. […]

2021-11-18T10:25:06-05:00November 18th, 2021|infection control, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Who Cares for the Nurses Who Care for You?

‘An epidemic of nonstop.’

According to Provision 5 of the American Nurses Association (ANA) Code of Ethics, “the nurse owes the same duties to self as to others, including the responsibility to promote health and safety, preserve wholeness of character and integrity, maintain competence, and continue personal and professional growth.” Yet all too often, nurses are viewed as heroes, and this heroization, while perhaps well-intentioned, may exacerbate a reality in which nurses put caring for others ahead of caring for themselves.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a worsening of an issue that has long plagued the nursing profession: “an epidemic of nonstop” in which the lack of basic self-care such as bathroom and meal breaks has become the norm and nurses literally “work until they drop.” The many stressors associated with the COVID-19 pandemic further heightened the need for nurses to care for themselves.

Workplace benefits and financial protections vary widely for nurses.

Approximately three-quarters of all health care workers, including nearly 90% of nurses, are women. COVID-19 brought to light the gaps in benefits among these workers.

In order to support nurses whose ability to work had been affected by the pandemic by providing them with direct financial assistance through emergency grants, the American Nurses Foundation partnered with Nurses […]

2021-11-10T10:41:13-05:00November 10th, 2021|COVID-19, Nursing, nursing career, women's health|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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