nursing stories Archives - Page 12 of 16

A Public Health Nurse at the Intersection of Birth and Death

The January Reflections essay in AJN is called “Touching Death, Touching Life.” The author, Yaffa Vinikoor, is a public health nurse who describes a patient she refers to as Sidney. Over time, she’s come to know the worn furniture of Sidney’s small apartment and the details of his life, such as Arnold, his paid caretaker, and Sidney’s younger wife, who lives separately. Sid has dementia and several other conditions and is in decline. “Sid,” she writes “usually lay slanted, like he’d been haphazardly dropped onto the enormous mattress, hair askew and face contorted.”

The essay explores what it’s like to be pregnant while doing such work. Vinikoor’s situation that summer puts her in relation to two very different currents:

I continued to do my work in the city as a public health nurse with the chronically ill homebound up until the day I went into labor. . . . I continued to walk miles per day, the nursing supplies in my backpack bowing my back and the baby in my belly guiding me forward . . . . As I cared for those whose lives were in steady decline, I thought about what giving birth to new life […]

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Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2017-01-27T10:31:16-05:00January 27th, 2017|Nursing, nursing stories, Public health|2 Comments

Home for Christmas: Flight Nursing and the Symbols of Hope

The Helm of Awe /courtesy of the author

As nurses, we all have patients who stick with us. I’ve thought of Henry many times since we transferred him six months ago from Dublin to an American hospital to undergo groundbreaking treatment or acute lymphocytic leukemia.

His prognosis was poor—a fact he was well aware of. He’d told his father he wanted to “be done.” He’d had enough of hospitals and the medicine that didn’t cure him and only made him feel worse. He was ambulatory and stable from a medical standpoint, but had the drawn and haggard look of the chronically ill. Most disturbing was his reticence. There was none of the enthusiasm I’d expect from a 12-year-old riding across the Atlantic in a Learjet—he couldn’t even be coaxed to lean into the cockpit.

The only time he perked up was when we landed for fuel in Keflavik, Iceland. He sat up and gazed out the window on our approach, looking interested in his surroundings for the first time. I found out from his dad that he’d missed a school trip to the island due to his cancer, and I started telling him all I knew of Iceland, which wasn’t much. At that time, I had […]

Marcy Phipps, BSN, RN, CCRN, CFRN2017-07-27T11:49:54-04:00December 20th, 2016|Nursing, nursing stories|0 Comments

The Primary Care Confessions of Traumatized Patients

In this month’s Reflections essay, “The Traumatized Patient,” family nurse practitioner Margaret Adams delves with sympathy into what she calls the “primary care confessions” of a challenging subset of patients. Writes Adams:

I’ve come to recognize patients like you—sometimes by your disturbingly long and detailed allergy lists, but more often by the frequency with which you come in for the same constellation of symptoms: fatigue, headaches, dizziness, general malaise. Something happened to you— maybe years ago, maybe recently—and it left its mark on you in irredeemable ways, . . .

While symptoms often do have underlying physiological causes, Adams is likewise attuned to the emotional subtext behind certain seemingly fruitless patient encounters. And with many specific examples, she makes the case here that the life of trauma plays itself out over time in the body and mind. […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:00:53-05:00October 18th, 2016|Nursing, nursing stories, patient engagement, Patients|0 Comments

Clara Barton Tour Update: From Mercury as Medicine to Modern Disaster Response

The two Clara Barton Study Tour updates below are from Jean Johnson of the Red Cross National Nursing Committee and Linda MacIntyre, chief nurse of the Red Cross, who are taking in tons of impressions and information at the various tour sites.

At Antietam

Wednesday, September 28

We’ve found our way to the Pry House Field Hospital Museum near the Antietam battle site as our first stop on the Clara Barton Tour. Medications used for surgery necessitated fast surgical procedures as ether wore off quickly. This had its benefits.

However, there were toxic medicines used, such as mercury. One surgeon refused to use a mercury-based medication and was discharged from his post. His colleagues weren’t ready to accept evidence-based medicine—it was later confirmed that mercury caused significant damage to tissue. We also learned that soldiers treated in the barn and field did better in recovery than the officers who were cared for in the Pry House. This was because of the fresh air. […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:00:57-05:00October 1st, 2016|Clara Barton 2016, Nursing, nursing history, nursing stories, Public health|0 Comments

Former Navy Nurse Raises Awareness About the Lingering Effects of Agent Orange

Susan Schnall and a group of children at Tu Du Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, in 2008.

On August 10, 1961, the United States military first sprayed Agent Orange, a defoliant containing a particularly toxic dioxin compound, in Vietnam. Fifty-five years later, the effects of this and other chemicals linger on. And 48 years after former naval nurse Susan Schnall was court-martialed for protesting the Vietnam War, she visited Vietnam for the first time and witnessed these effects firsthand.

“In all my years in health care, I have never seen children with such severe birth defects,” Schnall said during an interview with AJN. After her court-martial, Schnall went on to have a successful 30-year career in hospital administration. After retiring and visiting Vietnam, she decided she needed to do something about what she witnessed there.

Schnall joined a group called the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign, made up of American Vietnam Veterans, Vietnamese Americans, social activists, and community leaders. The group aims to educate the public on the repercussions of the chemical warfare used in Southeast […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:01-05:00August 15th, 2016|nursing perspective, nursing stories, Public health|0 Comments