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

Editor-in-chief, (emerita), AJN

Black Nurses, Then and Now

“Despite the surgeon general’s plea for more nurses to enlist, the army set a quota of 56 black nurses. However, the NACGN helped to abolish this quota, and by the end of World War II, more than 500 black nurses had served in the army and four had served in the navy.”

Nurses gathered at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1918.

The theme for this year’s Black History Month, “African Americans in Times of War,” was chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)* to commemorate the end of World War I in 1918.

In keeping with the theme, we offer this photo, which appeared on the cover of our February 2010 issue. The cover story, by Alison Bulman, provided context:

It was 1918 and the armistice ending World War I had just been signed when black nurses gathered at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio, to take the photo that appears on our cover. Although the Army Nurse Corps had been established some 17 years earlier, black nurses had only just been permitted to join. Despite their honorable service in the Spanish-American War in 1898 and in World War I, it wasn’t until the desperate need for nurses during the influenza pandemic of 1918 […]

2018-02-12T09:00:39-05:00February 12th, 2018|Nursing, nursing history|1 Comment
Read More

Low Physical Activity Among Chinese American Immigrants with Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes

“…compared with the general population, people who have or are at risk for type 2 diabetes are significantly less likely to engage in regular physical activity.”

On this month’s cover, group practices tai chi during snowfall in Shenyang, China. ©Photo Reuters/Stringer.

We all know that physical activity is important for maintaining health—for everyone. It’s especially important to prevent or manage prediabetes and type 2 diabetes.

AJN’s February research feature, “Physical Activity Among Chinese American Immigrants with Prediabetes or Type 2 Diabetes,” takes a special look at the issue among Chinese American immigrants. Diabetes is the fifth leading cause of death among Asian Americans, so researchers wanted to investigate what this population’s knowledge of and barriers to physical activity might be.

Recruiting from a community health center in New York City, researchers conducted interviews with 100 foreign-born Chinese American adults having a diagnosis of prediabetes or type 2 diabete

According to the study authors:

“Chinese American immigrants with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes tend to be sedentary and are less likely to perform moderate or vigorous physical activity than the general population . . . .The findings also highlight some of the barriers to such activity and suggest a need for greater involvement […]

2018-02-07T10:30:12-05:00February 7th, 2018|exercise, Nursing, nursing research, patient engagement, personal health practices|0 Comments
Read More

Experienced Bedside Nurses: An Endangered Species?

“The trend toward our hospitals being primarily populated with nurses with less than two years’ experience is worrisome.”

At least three colleagues who’ve recently been patients in hospitals or had family members who were have remarked on the youthful nurses they encountered—and on their lack of experience. In two of the conversations, my colleagues cited instances in which this lack of experience was detrimental to care, one of them dangerous. That “sixth sense,” that level of awareness that comes with lived experience and becomes part of expert clinical knowledge, is important for safe, quality patient care.

In the February editorial, I report on the answers I received when I queried our editorial board members about new nurses’ inclination to work in acute care for only two years to gain experience and then leave to pursue NP careers. Many of the board members have seen a similar trend, one reflected by research on nurse retention, some of it published in AJN (most recently, see Christine Kovner’s February 2014 study on the work patterns of newly licensed RNs, free until February 6). […]

2018-01-29T09:54:37-05:00January 29th, 2018|career, Nursing, nursing roles, patient safety, Patients|28 Comments
Read More

Pain, an Ever-Present Concern for Patients—and Nurses

Nurses at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago manage baby boy’s postoperative pain following heart transplant. Photo courtesy of Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital.

In my experience working with severely ill or injured patients, pain was what they talked about the most. They either asked about it prior to a treatment or intervention (“How much is this going to hurt?”), relived their history with it (“This pain isn’t as bad as the pain I had….”), or were consumed with fear that it would never end (“I can’t handle this—can’t they give me anything for it?”).

Post-op patients mostly had the same standard order, whether they were slightly built women or burly men: meperidine 25mg q3-4 h IM. I remember watching the time so I could administer the medication as soon as the clock would allow—and sometimes “fudging” the time a bit because the medication wasn’t “holding” the patient. It was one of the topmost issues for nurses in acute care—how to ensure patients were comfortable and pain free. As a nurse, not being able […]

2018-01-17T10:04:37-05:00January 17th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
Read More

The Ten Most-Viewed AJN articles in 2017

What AJN Readers Read

nurse typing on keyboardIt’s always interesting (at least to me) to look back over the year and see what articles were the most popular. While we can’t be sure what people who read AJN in print actually viewed, we can get a good idea from those who read online. From those who accessed AJN articles either through the Ovid institutional subscription service or through our own website, www.ajnonline.com (but not counting those who read AJN articles on the iPad or via the company nursing portal, www.nursingcenter.com), here’s what we know readers viewed the most. Some of the content was new in 2017; some of it was not.

  1. AJN’s award-winning series “Evidence-Based Practice, Step-by-Step.” – This series of 11 articles by Melnyk, Fineout-Overholt, and colleagues ran every other month from November 2009 through July 2011 and took readers through the steps of searching and appraising the literature and implementing change.
  2. “Nursing’s Evolving Role in Patient Safety,” by Sonya Kowalski and Maureen Anthony (February 2017). This content analysis of AJN articles from 1900 to 2015 explored the nurse’s role in promoting patient safety. (I have to admit, as a history buff, this is one of my personal favorites.)
  3. “Interprofessional Collaboration and Education,” by Mary Sullivan et al (March 2015). This article describes the tenets of interprofessional […]
2018-01-02T14:46:41-05:00January 2nd, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
Read More

Comment ground rules

1. Please be respectful.
2. We moderate all comments.

Content disclaimer

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.
Go to Top