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

Editor-in-chief, (emerita), AJN

Leaving WHO? Now?

Vital global health needs.

The July cover of AJN shows a nurse-midwife counseling a new mother in Ghana. We obtained this photograph from Jhpiego, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that has been providing health services for women and families in developing countries since 1974. Not only does this image pay tribute to the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, but it’s a reminder that though the world’s attention is focused on the mounting cases of COVID-19, other vital global health care needs deserve our attention and our support. Infant and maternal mortality; communicable diseases like TB, Ebola, and malaria; and health crises arising from disasters, poverty, and war don’t pause while we deal with this outbreak.

A stunning departure.

I’m still in disbelief that the United States has given the World Health Organization (WHO) notice that it is pulling out of the organization. In May, the White House threatened to cut funding and leave, claiming that the WHO favored China and thus mishandled the COVID-19 outbreak (this was after praising them in April). This week, the United States confirmed it will leave the WHO. A global pandemic hardly seems the time to stop collaborating with other countries as the whole planet seeks solutions to combat this new and deadly coronavirus. […]

2020-07-09T11:32:24-04:00July 9th, 2020|climate change, infectious diseases, Public health|7 Comments
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Food or Meds? The Lose-Lose Choice Facing Some Older Americans

Food insecurity was already common in older adults before the pandemic.

image by congerdesign from Pixabay

Years ago, when I worked as an ED nurse at Bellevue Hospital, one patient who became a favorite was a charming octogenarian named Sam. He would frequently present in congestive heart failure or pulmonary edema. He always responded quickly to treatment and often just needed a bit of furosemide to get rid of excess fluid.

After one of his almost monthly admissions, we found out that Sam relied on canned soup for much of his diet. The high salt content would cause him to retain too much fluid. He knew the salt wasn’t good for him, but soup was cheap and sometimes all he could afford.

What is food insecurity?

The United States is one of the world’s richest countries, yet we know that hunger is a common problem for many people. Older adults, especially those over 65 with multiple chronic conditions and who take multiple medications, are especially at risk for food insecurity—the inability to afford healthy and nutritious food.

Hard choices for elderly on a fixed income.

Many older adults live on fixed incomes and many don’t have supplemental insurance to cover medications. Some may have to choose between paying for medication or paying for other necessities like housing and food.

Many rely on programs like Meals on Wheels or food banks, but a number of these programs were suspended, at least for a time, during the early days of […]

2020-06-16T15:26:38-04:00June 16th, 2020|Nursing, Patients, Public health|1 Comment
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COVID-19: It’s Not Only About Hospital-Based Nurses

‘We all just went charging towards this monster…’

We’ve all seen the photos of nurses in PPE providing care to patients who are obviously very ill with COVID-19. These nurses have justifiably received recognition and accolades for their commitment to duty under the most challenging circumstances and often at great personal risk.

I recently spoke with Megan Brunson, the president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), who is also a supervisor in the cardiovascular ICU at Medical City Dallas Hospital.

Brunson described her own experiences, but also what she was hearing from her colleagues as they all “just went charging towards this monster called COVID.” She also talked about how the organization was rapidly developing resources, not only for clinical care but to help nurses deal with emotional stress. One initiative is partnering with DearWorld.org to create a collection of portraits and stories from nurses caring for patients with COVID-19.

Disrupting work in many settings.

But it behooves us to realize that this pandemic has not caused stress and critical challenges just for acute care nurses; nurses in many settings have been challenged and have had their work disrupted.

In the last two weeks, I spoke with nurses and nursing leaders of several organizations to learn about how the coronavirus pandemic has changed […]

2020-05-15T17:09:36-04:00May 15th, 2020|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing roles|0 Comments
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An Unimaginable Year of the Nurse and the Midwife

This year’s Nurses Week may be remembered for what didn’t happen.

For nursing, this was to be a year of celebration, of bringing attention to the vital role nurses play as the largest group of health professionals, providing most of the health care to the world. There were commemorative events planned for May 12 to mark the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale and in October an international conference to end a year of highlighting nurses and the nursing profession. In the United States, the American Nurses Association (ANA) changed the annual May Nurses Week to Nurses Month. AJN planned several articles and covers throughout the year, including this issue’s guest editorial on the first-ever State of the World’s Nursing report.

COVID-19 has focused worldwide attention on the vital importance of nursing.

While in-person events have all been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, what has not been lost is the attention to what nurses do and their courage and commitment to provide care to all who need it. And as with colleagues who performed their duties in other pandemics, combat zones, and life-threatening disasters, nurses today have not flinched in the face of great personal risk. I’m in awe of nurses who traveled […]

2020-05-07T10:18:35-04:00May 7th, 2020|Nursing|1 Comment
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COVID-19: Where Do We Go From Here?

By AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy

It’s mid-April and I feel like I’m in one of those B-rated movies of the 1950s—where the atomic bomb hit and everyone is sequestered in bunkers, only venturing out to forage for food.

I’m entering our 5th week following stay-at-home recommendations and I guess it’s paying off—New York (where I usually work) and New Jersey (where I live) seem to be seeing a slight “flattening of the curve.” (Does anyone not know about the COVID-19 curve? See this site by the University of Michigan for an explanation).

But that good news is tempered by the fact that some states have yet to see their peak. In addition, we’ve yet come with grips in how to deal with the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes, prisons, and shelters.

It’s worrisome to me that there is already talk of relaxing stay-at-home orders and social distancing before we have sufficient testing to have a clear understanding of how the disease spreads, before some states have reached their peak, and before we have refined the process of supplying and protecting health care workers. No one doubts that the economic shutdown is causing tremendous suffering, but without a firm grasp on how best to […]

2020-04-16T10:26:04-04:00April 16th, 2020|Nursing|0 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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