About Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)

Editor-in-chief, (emerita), AJN

Words Matter – Including Those Left Unsaid

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

How often did we as children say these words to those who teased us? Yet we still felt the sting that unkind and malicious words imparted, especially when said by those we trusted. And it didn’t matter if the taunts were untrue—they still hurt.

Words matter—take youth bullying, for example.

Photo by Benjamin Voros/Unsplash

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, both bullies and targets of bullying are at high risk for depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. And bullying in nursing is a well-known occurrence and a significant factor in why nurses leave their jobs.

Words matter and are especially important when laws and policies are created.

The words codified in legislation—and those words excluded—dictate funding, programs, and who can participate in the programs or provide them.

Words matter and are especially powerful when spoken by public officials who can influence scores of followers to think and act in certain ways.

I often wonder how many fewer people might have died if more of our leaders had embraced rather than denigrated science-based public health practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Words matter when they are used to spread false information or denigrate certain […]

2024-10-31T12:54:24-04:00October 31st, 2024|Ethics, Nursing|1 Comment
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What Nurses Say About Nursing, and What Should Change

A novel AI-assisted approach identified issues and developed recommendations.

There have been many articles about the current challenges in nursing and what might be done to improve nurses’ workplaces and retain nurses. While nurses have proven to be resilient long before, during, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, without changes by the systems in which they work, even the hardiest of nurses will become burned-out.

A recent report notes that the RN vacancy rate is almost 10% and the national turnover rate among hospital nursing staff  is 20%. Surveys cite the familiar reasons: high and intense workload, insufficient staffing, bullying, and lack of support.

Since 2021, the R3:Resilient Nurses Initiative of Maryland has been creating and providing free resources to support nurses and nursing students as they deal with the stress and challenges in health care. Recently the initiative used a unique platform, Slow Talk, to elicit discussions with nurses about their perspectives on nursing and what they think needs to happen so nurses are able to practice in ways that reflect their education and commitments. (Click here to listen to a related podcast discussion about the Slow Talk platform and its value as a place for frontline workers to share […]

2024-07-31T11:18:54-04:00July 29th, 2024|nurse staffing, Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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Women’s History Month 2023: Telling Our (Nursing) Stories

The National Women’s History Alliance organizes Women’s History Month each March. This year, the theme, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” was picked to draw attention to  “women in every community who have devoted their lives and talents to producing art, pursuing truth, and reflecting the human condition decade after decade.” To this end, the organization has been highlighting such literary notables as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Gloria Steinem, and Willa Cather, among others.

For Women’s History Month in March 2015, I wrote an editorial in AJN discussing the importance of knowing nursing history and pointing out that as a female-majority profession, nursing’s history is closely entwined with women’s history. Nurses have made significant contributions to developing the health system of this country—indeed, community health services, school health, and public health were built through the efforts of nurses. […]

2023-03-20T09:54:13-04:00March 20th, 2023|Nursing|0 Comments
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Recent Supreme Court Decisions and Public Health Consequences

The overturn of Roe v Wade wasn’t the only decision with health effects.

Photo by Anna Sullivan/Unsplash

In the December 2021 issue of AJN, Caroline Dorsen and colleagues wrote a Viewpoint, “Why Nurses Should Care About the Supreme Court.” In it, they note:

“The court decides cases every year that have direct implications for our patients, our role as health care providers, and our profession. They decide cases that speak to our common humanity and affect the systems that influence health disparities. And we should all care about that.”

This certainly rang true for decisions recently handed down by the Supreme Court.

Other health consequences of the Dobbs case.

While much of the attention on the recent Supreme Court rulings has focused on the overturn of Roe v. Wade (in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization) and the effects that it will have for millions of women on their access to and choice of reproductive health care, we are starting to see many other potential effects of that decision.

An article at MedPage Today describes concerns that physicians may not choose obstetrics as a career because of worries over prosecution—what if a court doesn’t agree with their management of miscarriages or disagrees with their judgment that a mother’s life was in danger? Nurse midwives […]

2022-07-18T10:19:50-04:00July 18th, 2022|environmental health, Nursing|0 Comments
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What Will It Take? When Will We Act?

Once again, we are sickened by another school shooting and the loss of children and teachers who tried to protect them from being mowed down by an assault weapon in the hands of an 18-year-old boy. This time Uvalde, Texas, is grieving for 19 children and two teachers, and it’s less than two weeks since a shooting in a Buffalo grocery store left 10 dead. Of course, we immediately see the messages from legislators offering their condolences and thoughts and prayers, but no promises to change anything. If not them, then who can?

I remember the awfulness of treating the occasional pediatric gunshot victim when I worked in the ER—usually an unintended target who was caught in crossfire. It was gut-wrenching, the kind of thing that should be a “never-event.” Today, ER nurses, paramedics, and physicians see young gunshot victims far too often. I don’t know how they can do it day after day, trying to comfort parents while dealing with their own trauma.

The leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents.

Firearm deaths are now the leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents (ages 1 to 19 years) in this country, according to a recent analysis by researchers at the University of Michigan reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. […]

2022-05-27T14:01:41-04:00May 27th, 2022|gun violence, pediatrics, Public health|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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