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When Professional Organizations Are Out of Sync With the Needs of Nurses

The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and do not represent the views of their employers or affiliated institutions, or of AJN and Wolters Kluwer.

One of the many lessons my veteran father taught me was this: actions tell you what a person believes in, and you should believe people when they show you what they believe. This principle applies not just to individuals, but also to organizations run by groups of like-minded people.

Many of our national nursing advocacy organizations, like the American Nurses Association (ANA), National League for Nursing (NLN), and others have been complacent in many arenas of nursing advocacy for far too long. Nurses are more burned out than ever, bedside nurse wages have stagnated, the costs of both health care and education continue to balloon, and there is an ongoing epidemic of violence against health care professionals and citizens alike. I find myself reflecting upon my own efforts to address any of these issues faced by my fellow nurses or community, and I cannot help but look to the largest and most powerful nursing organizations with disappointment at their inaction on even the most straightforward issues.

When professional organizations fall short.

Sure, nursing organizations are good at issuing reports and recommendations. For example, in 2025 a new version of the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses was published. Commitment to society and social justice is one of the provisions, including an ethical obligation for both nurses and their professional […]

2026-05-04T09:50:31-04:00March 9th, 2026|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Fatigue in the Infusion Chair: Making Our Teaching Count

Cancer-related fatigue: not ordinary tiredness.

Image via Shutterstock

“I’m just really tired.”

She says it quietly, almost apologetically, while I’m flushing her port. If I’m not careful, I could nod and say, “That’s common,” and move on. But over time, I’ve learned that when a patient says “tired,” they’re often describing something much bigger.

Cancer-related fatigue isn’t the kind of tired that comes after a long day. It’s not fixed by a good night’s sleep. It’s the kind that makes someone say, “If I shower, I have to rest before I can get dressed,” or “If I cook dinner, that’s it for the day.”

In the infusion chair, fatigue is everywhere. During chemotherapy and radiation, most patients experience it at some point. For some, it lingers long after treatment ends. And when fatigue begins to interfere with daily life—cooking, driving, bathing, managing medications—it quietly erodes independence.

Talking to patients about fatigue.

But fatigue conversations are easy to rush. We have vitals to check, labs to review, medications to hang. It’s tempting to treat fatigue as expected background noise. I’ve found that the difference between a rushed fatigue conversation and a meaningful one often comes down to slowing down by just a minute.

Instead of asking only, “How tired are you?” I try […]

2026-03-04T14:07:41-05:00March 4th, 2026|Nursing, Oncology nursing, patient experience, Patients|2 Comments
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Nurses Have an Ethical Obligation to Demand Accountability for ICE Violence

The views expressed in this post are those of the authors, and do not represent the views of their employers or affiliated institutions, or of AJN and Wolters Kluwer.

On January 24, 2026, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse who worked in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Alex died while upholding core nursing values of helping and supporting his community. While standing in opposition to the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis, he was directing traffic and helping a woman being pepper-sprayed by CBP. These actions should not have cost him his life. It is now time for us, fellow nurses and leaders, to follow Alex Pretti’s example by advocating for our communities and upholding the core ethical principles of our discipline, including justice, beneficence, and nonmaleficence.

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2026-02-17T14:54:37-05:00February 17th, 2026|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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The Language of Side Effects: How Words Shape a Patient’s Experience

Image: Shutterstock

The first time I told a patient, “You will probably lose your hair,” she froze. I watched her face change—the hope leaving her eyes before treatment even began. I meant to prepare her, but my certainty sounded like a sentence. Since then, I’ve learned the quiet power of words like might, can, and some patients. The difference is small, but to the person sitting in the chair, it’s everything.

Nurses speak thousands of words a day—vital signs, medication names, discharge instructions—but within that rhythm live phrases that shape how people cope. Our goal is never to soften reality or minimize side effects; patients deserve truth. What matters is how we deliver it—whether our tone invites fear or fosters partnership, whether our words validate the feelings that follow.

When I say, “You will feel tired,” the message sounds absolute, leaving no room for variation or hope. When I say, “Many people feel tired, and we’ll help you manage it if it happens,” the information is identical, but the intention changes. One predicts suffering; the other promises support.

Research confirms what bedside nurses sense: framing matters. In a randomized trial of more than […]

2026-02-03T11:25:41-05:00February 3rd, 2026|patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment
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Cost-Cutting and Nursing: Are We Solving the Wrong Problems?

Courtney Desy, BSN, RN, OCN

Across the country, hospitals are under sustained financial pressure. Margins are thin, reimbursement often fails to cover the cost of care, supply chains remain fragile, and administrative demands continue to grow. Leaders are asked to stabilize organizations while navigating forces largely outside their control.

Those pressures inevitably reach the clinical floor.

In staff meetings, nurses hear familiar refrains: we need to be more efficient, we need to tighten workflows, we need to reduce waste. These requests are rarely made casually or without reason. They reflect real financial strain and genuine concern about sustainability.

But in high-acuity clinical settings—especially oncology—the question isn’t whether efficiency matters. It does.

The question is whether we are starting in the right place.

The Problem with starting at cost-cutting

Nurses are trained to define the problem before proposing solutions. In clinical care, jumping to treatment without understanding the diagnosis is unsafe. Yet in operational decision-making, the process is often reversed.

The implicit starting question becomes:

How do we cut costs?

Once that question is accepted, the solutions are predictable: tighter schedules, compressed staffing, reduced flexibility at the bedside. These approaches may lower expenses in the short term, but they rarely address the forces actually driving financial instability.

From the nursing perspective, that […]

2026-01-16T15:00:23-05:00January 14th, 2026|nurse staffing, Nursing, patient safety, safe staffing|3 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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