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At Red Cross National Headquarters, a Vision of Past and Present Priorities

The author speaking to the Clara Barton tour group before the Tiffany stained glass windows at national Red Cross headquarters.

“Because of the climate crisis, the Red Cross launches nearly twice as many relief operations for major disasters than it did a decade ago.”

Today a group of us tracing the career and legacy of Clara Barton arrived at the ornate national Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., a building I have been at countless times over my last 48 years of volunteering. Every time I enter, it reminds me of the people who have worked so hard to help millions of people have better lives—whether through disaster or war recovery, aid for military families, or donating the gift of blood.

Built as a memorial to the women of the Civil War with U.S. and private funds, the headquarters features exquisite architecture. The building’s showpiece—the Tiffany stained glass windows—are designed to “symbolize reconciliation following the Civil War and are reputed to be the largest suite of Tiffany windows created for a secular environment.”

A Brief History

We learned how the Red Cross initially focused on domestic and overseas disaster relief efforts, assisted the U.S. […]

2024-06-05T10:44:05-04:00June 5th, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, climate change, Nursing, nursing history, Public health|0 Comments
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How Did She Do It? A Second Chance to Study Clara Barton’s Legacy

Do you know that game where people ask each other which famous person they would most like to have dinner with? Well, for me it’s Clara Barton. I would jump right to the punch line: Dearest Clara, how DID you do it? 

How did you stand up for enslaved people during the height of the Civil War? How did you manage to care for the men fighting in the Civil War with all the gore that war brings, in your hoop skirt no less?

Men and women alike were frowning upon your activities and actively blocking your efforts—and asking you to simply go home and be a lady. How were you able to help families find their missing husbands, sons, and fathers during and after the war, and then help locate and mark nearly 13,000 graves?

Founding the American Red Cross

And here’s the big one, Clara: How were you able to take the lessons you learned from caring for soldiers during the war and assisting in disasters to build one of the greatest humanitarian organizations of all time, the American Red Cross—as a 59-year-old single woman, no less? Most people told you it was impossible to create an organization that was impartial, neutral, independent of the government, and run by volunteers. Then you led the organization for […]

2024-06-03T11:22:06-04:00June 3rd, 2024|Clara Barton Tour 2024, Nursing|1 Comment
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The ‘World’s Meanest’ Clinical Nursing Instructor

When I was growing up, my mother kept a short essay called “I Had the World’s Meanest Mother” displayed in our house. She really loved that essay. What I’m writing today is inspired by that essay. It’s not for mothers but for all those clinical instructors who continue to cultivate the next generation of nurses.

Student nurse giving a patient a metabolism test/Library of Congress

As I sit in the classroom and hear my colleagues talk about their clinical instructors, I remember my own and think to myself that I’m the one who had the meanest clinical instructor: She kept us in clinical for our entire allotted time. Not only that, but she frequently reminded us of the importance of our clinical rotation by saying things like “you are paying for an education,” “this will help you to be successful in your NCLEX preparation,” and “you will become a great nurse.”

In some ways that clinical instructor reminded me of Mary Poppins—she always carried a bag and she seemed to pull an endless number of items out of its depths: NCLEX questions with a list of rationales; an NCLEX blueprint (she had a few copies); concept map templates; a medication book; even […]

2024-05-21T11:44:47-04:00May 21st, 2024|Nursing, Nursing education|4 Comments
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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 […]

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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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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