Guest Author, Author at Off the Charts

Is the Florence Nightingale Pledge in Need of a Makeover?

By Christine Moffa, who was AJN clinical editor at the time it was written in 2010.

Authors and publishers frequently send nursing– and health care–related books to AJN in hopes we will review them. I love it, so keep on sending them. My latest read is Mystery at Marian Manor: The Adventures of Nora Brady, Student Nurse, a book for young adults. I guess you could call it a Cherry Ames for the new millennium.

At the beginning of the book is the Florence Nightingale Pledge, something I haven’t read since my graduation in 1995. I have to say it made me cringe. It’s almost as bad as when I visit my parents and see the nursing school graduation photo of me in that silly nursing cap I wore under protest. (If the men didn’t have to wear it, why did I?) If you’ve forgotten the pledge, here goes:

I solemnly pledge myself before God and presence of this assembly;
To pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully.
I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous
and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug.
I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession
and will hold in confidence […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:19:41-05:00February 2nd, 2010|career, nursing history, nursing perspective, students|26 Comments

Emergency—Bleeding Esophageal Varices: What Nurses Need to Know

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

This month’s CE feature opens with a patient with alcoholic cirrhosis who suddenly vomits large amounts of blood. She’s experiencing variceal hemorrhage from esophageal varices, an often deadly complication of alcoholic liver disease, as author Melissa M. Smith explains. Esophageal varices occur in roughly half of all people with alcoholic cirrhosis; about one-third of these will experience variceal hemorrhage.

Smith describes the etiology of esophageal varices, then discusses the risk factors for variceal hemorrhage, noting that risk for initial hemorrhage increases with:

larger variceal size
presence of red spots or wales on the varices
more severe portal hypertension
more severe cirrhosis, with or without ascites

And the above factors as well as the following increase risk for recurrent hemorrhage:

severity of initial bleed
age over 60 years
bacterial infection
renal failure
active alcoholism

Smith discusses emergent treatment and outlines further treatment options, which include endoscopic variceal ligation, endoscopic injection sclerotherapy, balloon tamponade, and transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) placement. The patient case vividly illustrates what can happen when bleeds recur.

Have you cared for patients with variceal hemorrhage? We invite you to share your experiences with us in the comments.

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:19:42-05:00February 1st, 2010|nursing perspective|2 Comments

‘You Start to See Everything’: Jackie Robidoux, Nurse and Photographer

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Jackie Robidoux, a staff nurse on the orthopedic unit at Elliot Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire, is also an amateur tracker and an award-winning nature photographer. This month we feature her stock photos both on our cover and in Art of Nursing.

“I love raw beauty,” Robidoux told AJN recently. To capture the image of the two does shown here, she waited for more than two hours on a hillside in 10-degree weather. “When you’re out there a long time like that, you start to see in a different way. You start to see everything around you.” Such patient alertness has also served her well as a nurse. To learn more, read On the Cover and visit her Web site.

If you’re a visual artist or a poet, we invite you to think about submitting to Art of Nursing. For details, read this blog post; guidelines can be found here. Still have questions? Write to me (I’m the department coordinator) and I’ll do my best to answer them: sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com.

Guest Author2017-04-14T09:07:38-04:00January 22nd, 2010|nursing perspective|0 Comments

Psychodrama, and Dreams: Art of Nursing’s December Poet

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

“Wife two weeps, leaves a trail of tissues, // stamps her foot, cries no one loves her,“ reports the narrator of “Psychodrama Session.” The poem, featured in this month’s Art of Nursing, offers a vivid look at what might happen when a man in psychotherapy talks about his past; read it here. (You’ll need to click again on “Article as PDF.”) Though her characters are imagined, writer Joan Mazza knows the world she’s writing about. She is a licensed psychotherapist and certified sex therapist as well as a speaker and writing coach.

Mazza has been published in numerous literary and mainstream magazines, from The MacGuffin and The Hudson Review to Writer’s Digest and, yes, Playgirl. She has also written several books on the uses of dreams, including Dream Back Your Life: A Practical Guide to Dreams, Daydreams, and Fantasies (Perigree Trade, 2000), described as a dream-based approach to self-improvement. For more information, visit her Web site.

And if you’re a poet or a visual artist, please consider submitting to Art of Nursing. Read this blog post for details. Guidelines can be found here; and if you still have questions, feel free to write to the Art of Nursing coordinator (me) at sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com.

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:20:33-05:00December 17th, 2009|Nursing|1 Comment

Required Reading: Nurses as Champions of Patient Safety

Photo from otisarchives4, via Flickr

By Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief emeritus of AJN. Mason is a member of the National Advisory Committee of Kaiser Health News.

I was delighted to see Kaiser Health News publish a superb commentary by nurse researcher Mary Naylor and health economist Mark Pauly on why nurses are the key to patient safety and quality, the barriers that interfere with nurses being these sentinels, and what can be done to address these barriers. It should be required reading by all policymakers, CEOs of health care organizations, and trustees.