Access to Abortion Medications: Why Should Nurses Care?

She sat in my office, tissue in hand, tears rolling down her cheeks as she tried to process the news I’d just confirmed: she was pregnant, and really, really needed to not be. She was living in her brother’s small house, her seven-year-old son with her, sleeping on a sofa while trying to put her life back together after a divorce. She had chronic kidney disease, and had been told that another pregnancy could cause kidney failure.

She didn’t really believe abortion was a good thing to do, but also couldn’t imagine that God would want her to go on dialysis. For the most part I listened, asking a question here and there to help her clarify her own thoughts. Ultimately, she decided on an abortion, so I referred her to the closest clinic, several hours away from the rural town we met in.

Medication Abortion in the United States

By Robin Marty/Flickr Creative Commons

Even before the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion was difficult to access for people living in many regions of the country. TRAP (targeted regulation of abortion providers) laws forced many clinics to close, making abortion access challenging if not impossible even though every American was legally, constitutionally permitted to make her own decision.

Last […]

2023-03-16T09:55:52-04:00March 16th, 2023|Ethics, Nursing, Patients, Public health, women's health|0 Comments
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ER Nurse Who Called 911 for Backup: ‘What Are We Afraid Of?’

Making the call.

As I got home this morning after a hectic 12-hour shift as charge RN in a 50-bed ER, I sat in my silent car for a moment to ponder how much has changed in the last three weeks.

Three weeks ago, overwhelmed by walk-in patients and ambulance traffic and severely short-staffed, I called the emergency services non-emergent line and asked for help in our crowded lobby. I wasn’t thinking about the repercussions, about the uproar or the giant target I sometimes feel I’ve installed on my back with my outspokenness. I was thinking about my coworkers, spread too thin, exhausted and afraid for their licenses, and the patients that I knew had been sitting in the lobby for hours, sick and in pain and mostly unmonitored. I had no idea of the attention that call would receive.

Did speaking out change anything?

Someone recently asked, “What changes have you seen in the month since you made that call?”

For myself, I’ve been learning to navigate in a more public arena, […]

2022-12-01T09:51:43-05:00December 1st, 2022|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient safety, safe staffing|5 Comments
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Getting Nurses with Substance Use Disorders the Help They Need

“Nurses have distinctive risk factors associated with the work environment that may increase the probability of developing an SUD.”

In my previous roles as the director of the emergency department and pediatric intensive care unit, I worked with nurses who were enrolled in the Intervention Project for Nurses (IPN), which is a substance use disorder (SUD) assistance program.

My colleagues would often ask me why I’d hire anyone who was enrolled in this program. My response was that these are the ones who are getting help and trying to recover. I feel safe with these nurses because I know they are being monitored and receiving treatment—it’s the other nurses that I worry about. […]

2022-10-12T09:33:38-04:00October 12th, 2022|career, Ethics, Nursing, patient safety|0 Comments
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Time to Stop Proving Burnout Exists and Start Researching Real Solutions

“Put simply, we know burnout exists and we know it’s getting worse. Let’s leave it at that and move forward. Let’s focus on what we know might mitigate burnout…”

That’s from this month’s Viewpoint, “Burnout Research at a Crossroads,” by Tim Cunningham and Sharon Pappas. Some readers may find it a relief to have this stated so baldly: let’s move on to solutions, say the authors. Let’s put research dollars, time, and energy behind the search for clearer information about what works and what doesn’t.

A two-pronged approach.

The authors see a crucial and legitimate place for investigation of what works and what doesn’t in wellness initiatives to support “personal resilience” through self-care (an increasingly nebulous term in itself).

But they caution against shifting the responsibility onto nurses’ shoulders and ignoring real systemic issues.

With this in mind, they call for research that first of all examines systemic factors:

“It’s only commonsensical that burnout and work experience are intimately tied. It’s time to look more closely at staffing, work hours, team nursing, equitable pay, and other work environment factors that may decrease burnout.”

[…]

2022-04-29T15:08:45-04:00April 28th, 2022|Nursing, nursing research, safe staffing|1 Comment
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How Should a Nurse Support Patients in Choosing a Time to Die?

Two of my six aunts died from Alzheimer disease (AD). They didn’t live nearby, so when I saw them every few months, the deterioration from the illness was evident. Both showed the same behavioral trends: some mild forgetfulness and repetitive questioning at first, then what seemed a prolonged period of incessant questions and bewilderment and anxiety over not understanding where they were or why they were there, who others were. Wandering outside at all hours, agitation and resistance to hygiene, eventually disappearing into a nonverbal, nonresponsive state.

It was painful to watch these formerly active, smart, and vibrant women decline in such a way. The most painful part was when they still understood that they were becoming confused and how frightened that made them.

Now there are alternatives available for those who don’t want to go down that road—but they are hard to come by, especially if you live in the United States.

People with dementia face particularly high hurdles.

A special feature in the March issue, “Medical Aid in Dying: What Every Nurse Needs to Know,” covers medical aid in dying and the nurse’s appropriate role in many end-of-life circumstances, including the ethically and logistically challenging situations of those with dementia who seek some agency over how […]

2022-03-28T09:59:28-04:00March 28th, 2022|Ethics, Nursing, nursing roles, patient experience|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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