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
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More

Alleviating Some Pressure for Acute Care Nurses

Holding huddles during a shift helped to keep nurses informed of hospital-wide and unit-based updates and allowed staff to express their concerns and ask questions. Photo by James Derek Dwyer / Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

It’s well-known that nurses are facing relentless pressure and challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it doesn’t seem to be resolving anytime soon. While we know that short-staffing is a huge problem and needs to be addressed, hospitals also need to adopt strategies in the here and now to alleviate some of these stressors. AJN recently published several articles detailing the creation and employment of such strategies.

One such article, “Supporting Frontline Staff During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” can be found in our September issue. In the article, nurse leaders from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston describe the challenges nursing staff faced during the COVID-19 surge in the spring of 2020 and the actions taken to support them. […]

2021-10-07T09:50:09-04:00October 7th, 2021|Nursing, safe staffing|0 Comments
Read More

A Plea for Help in Making Nursing Sustainable

by Casey Horner/via Unsplash

My hairdresser made a comment that I hear from a lot of people who are not in health care.

“I don’t know how you do a full 12-hour shift when it’s life-and-death work. I mean, I have long days working too, but cutting and styling hair isn’t life and death. I just can’t understand how you do it.”

I smiled and shrugged, as I usually do.

“Thanks for recognizing that. I don’t know. We get used to it, and we have a certain flow at work, even when it gets crazy. Plus it cuts down on the number of days I have to commute to work since I get so many hours in in one day.”

I had so much more to say, but that wasn’t the place for it. This is.

It’s true that at our core, we nurses are just wired to do this kind of work and we can push through it beyond a standard eight-hour work day. It also works well for consistency in ICU patient care to only have one changeover of the patient’s nurse from one 12-hour day shift to the incoming 12-hour night shift. We have generally found ways to ride the waves of an especially high census mixed with especially sick patients, typically followed […]

2021-08-19T16:46:41-04:00July 29th, 2021|health care policy, Nursing, nursing career, Public health, safe staffing|5 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