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

Editor-in-chief, (emerita), AJN

‘How Can You Bear to Be a Nurse?’ – Nurses Week Begins

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Photo from otisarchives4, via Flickr.

Many people, myself included, have mixed feelings about Nurses Week. But since many institutions have finally gotten the message that “I love nurses” shoelaces and bumper stickers are not appreciated, I’m fine with using the week to highlight nurses’ accomplishments or provide special educational programs—we should use all opportunities available to increase awareness of the value nurses bring to health care.

Former AJN editor Mary Mallison wrote an editorial for Nurses Week in 1987 that’s been deemed a classic. We’ve reprinted it in the journal, but it’s timeless in how it captures what nurses do, so here it is again (either click the above link to the article on our Web site, or just click the PDF below) for Nurses Week.

  PDF version: HowCanYouBearToBeANurse?

2018-03-28T10:38:24-04:00May 7th, 2012|nursing perspective|7 Comments
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Future Nurses Have Their Say

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I spent part of last week in Pittsburgh, attending the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA) annual meeting. This one was special—the 60th anniversary of the organization.

Despite the celebratory air (not only because of the anniversary, but because the organization had exceeded its membership goal of 60,000 members), the 2,700 attendees seemed very serious about the work of the organization and about learning skills to help them in their careers—there were few slackers in this crowd.

The approximately 500 students who represented their states in the house of delegates dealt with some 40 resolutions, on such diverse topics as increasing awareness of the effects of third-hand smoke on children to supporting the “BSN-in-10” movement (a push for legislation requiring all new nurses to get bachelor’s degrees within 10 years).

For me, the best part is meeting future nurses and speaking with them about career plans. I met many students in the exhibit hall, where I was demonstrating AJN’s new iPad app. Unlike last year, when jobs seemed to be scarce, many of the seniors I spoke with this time around had already secured jobs—and those who hadn’t seemed confident they would.

Finish this sentence . . . I asked several of those about to start their nursing careers to finish the following sentence: “I’m excited about starting my nursing career because . . .” You can listen to their comments in this short podcast.

 

2018-03-28T10:37:45-04:00April 17th, 2012|career, students|0 Comments
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Essential Nursing Resources: A Crucial Tool for Nurses Seeking Information on the Web

This nursing resource will help you find anything you need to know

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Back in the dark ages, before the Web, when I was in school and researching a topic, I would go to the university library (in Manhattan, this meant a subway ride to the main campus), fill out a form, and hand it to the librarian. After a couple of hours, I’d check back and the librarian would have pulled up to eight “on-reserve” books (no more were allowed until these were returned) from the stacks and have them waiting for me. This cycle would repeat itself several times, and sometimes I’d have to wait for an “ILL”—an interlibrary loan. Of course, if I procrastinated, the material I wanted might already have been taken out by other students and I’d be out of luck, facing a deadline with no source material.

Of course, it’s all different now with the Web. This week, even the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica announced it is ceasing print production after almost 250 years and will only be available in digital format.

Now, researchers and students have virtually every article published available to them via the Internet. For nurses, there’s something called Essential Nursing Resources (pdf), an annotated listing of resources for nursing published by the Interagency Council on Information Resources in Nursing (ICIRN). 

Founded in 1960 (here’s a brief history) by […]

2016-11-21T13:10:20-05:00April 10th, 2012|digital health, nursing research|0 Comments
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Boards of Nursing and the Amanda Trujillo Case

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

Amanda Trujillo

Our prior post on the Amanda Trujillo case elicited many comments, on a variety of themes. There were also referrals and crosslinks to other sites supporting, analyzing, and weighing in on the situation, including statements from the Arizona Nurses Association and the ANA, and a post on a physician blog, “White Coat’s Call Room,” which has vowed to carry all the details once the case is decided.

One complaint raised by several people in response to our post was that the Arizona Board of Nursing wasn’t supporting Amanda. State nursing or medical boards are regulatory boards that exist to ensure the protection of the public and to regulate professional practice according to the law (in nursing’s case, according to nursing practice acts). They do not aim to protect the individual nurse, but to assure that all those who claim to be nurses are eligible to claim that title and practice within their scope of practice as defined by law.

Some historical context: Regulatory boards were set up back in the early 1900s, after nursing associations successfully lobbied for registration laws to keep out unqualified women who posed as nurses. In 1903, North Carolina was the first state to enact a nurse practice act; by the mid-1920s, all 48 states had laws regulating who could practice and who could use the title “registered nurse.”

Thus, boards of nursing are intended to protect the consumer and the […]

2016-11-21T13:10:42-05:00February 17th, 2012|Ethics, healthcare social media, Nursing|12 Comments
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The Case of Amanda Trujillo

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Post updated on January 10, 2013; see final paragraph. Amanda Trujillo, MSN, RN, is a nurse who until recently worked at Banner Del Webb Hospital in Sun City, Arizona, until she was fired for, as she claims, just doing what she’s obligated to do as a nurse—specifically, providing a patient information about a surgical procedure in an attempt to support fully informed decision making. (You can read her e-mail detailing her story here. She did not, as she has pointed out in comments, ever attempt to directly obtain informed consent herself.)

Amanda Trujillo

Ms. Trujillo says that, when the patient had a change of heart about the surgery, she requested a hospice consult. After a physician complained that Trujillo had overstepped her scope of practice, the hospital filed a complaint with the Arizona Board of Nursing, which has launched an investigation.

Ms. Trujillo has gone public with her story, sending e-mails and tweets to editors, public officials, bloggers, and the news media. The nursing blogosphere is full of posts with her story—Emergiblog, vdutton’s posterous (which has her attorney’s response to the complaint), and thenerdynurse, as well as a number of others. On January 31, she was interviewed on local television. She […]

2016-11-21T13:10:49-05:00February 2nd, 2012|nursing perspective|42 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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