The Power of Pictures in Therapeutic Healing

Sam was a 17-year-old who had been admitted following a major traumatic leg injury. The surgical teams were trying to save his leg.

A colleague asked me to ”pop in” on him, since he was having a hard time coping. Frankly, he was completely bummed out.

Sam and his mom were together in his room waiting to go to OR. I introduced myself as a nurse working with the pain management/spiritual care team. Conversation was stiff but polite. Sam made no eye contact with me at all.

Building relationships takes time.

photo courtesy of author

Following his procedure, I made a point of stopping by to visit almost every day. Mom had warmed up to me—Sam just a bit. It was an isolating time in the hospital. Visitors were not allowed, except for a single family member for pediatric patients, and the contacts with staff were often task focused and purposeful. One afternoon, I saw mom sitting in the hallway talking on her cell phone, crying. So I waited.

When she ended her call, I asked if she’d like some company. Our conversation found its way from the hospital to the kitchen, stopping along the way as we shared family and shopping tidbits. She laughed and we connected. I […]

How Research Starts: Choosing a Question That Passes the ‘So What’ Test

As an undergrad at the University of Michigan School of Nursing more than 40 years ago, I was among the few students who loved the required “research” course. I don’t know whether I looked forward to that class because I was an avid reader of Nancy Drew and saw research as detective work, or simply because nursing was so new to me that everything about it seemed exciting.

The main idea behind the course was that all nurses should be able to read and understand research reports. We didn’t get into the nuts and bolts of study design, complex statistics, or modeling, but we were expected to be able to analyze basic nursing research articles and to identify a study’s strengths and weaknesses.

This early experience didn’t lead me to pursue a career in research, but it left me with a respect for the research process and an interest in asking clinical questions.

Research basics explained.

Now, I have a chance to update my understanding of the field through AJN’s new series on research basics, Nursing Research, Step by Step. The first installment, “How Does Research Start?” is in the October issue of AJN. In this introduction to the subject, author Bernadette Capili makes […]

Bringing Escape Room Games to Nursing Education

The popularity of escape rooms has grown exponentially in the past decade, with these simulated group activities becoming an established part of gaming and pop culture. But the concept offers more than just a fun distraction or chance to work cooperatively with friends and family. Increasingly, these games are being incorporated into simulation-based clinical education.

An opportunity for collaboration.

In an escape room activity, a group of people work together to find clues, solve puzzles, and complete tasks within a set period of time. As they do so, they may progress through one room or several, but the goal is typically the same: for the group to “escape” from a simulated situation.

Step-by-step guide.

Educators have been exploring the use of this approach in nursing education to reinforce knowledge and engage students. As nurse educator Janice Hawkins and her colleagues at Old Dominion University School of Nursing in Virginia point out:

“By requiring a group of learners to solve a series of skills-related puzzles, educational escape rooms can help to build critical thinking, communication, and cooperative problem-solving skills.”

In “Behind the Scenes of an Educational Escape Room,” they provide a step-by-step guide to developing an effective educational escape room. Their advice stems from their […]

Memories of Beginning Nursing School

I just finished a visit with a longtime friend. Of course, we reminisced about nursing school.

We met the first week of nursing school, over 40 years ago (OMG, when did that happen?), when we and some other classmates went to buy books. She took one look at the crowd and came up with an organized and efficient approach to getting what we needed in the overcrowded college book store. She would grab four biology texts, I’d get the lab manuals, Betty would pick up the history texts, Kathy would head for the English section—and then we’d all meet at the cashier. We were in and out in no time.

During nursing school, we had many late-night tea parties, grilling each other on med/surg questions. Pharmacology was the class we all feared—it was largely a matter of memorization; we shared mnemonics and tricks for remembering drugs and dosages, and the night before the final pulled an “all-nighter” with lots of coffee, pacing up and down and citing drug facts out loud.

And when some of us had doubts, after a hard semester, if nursing was really a good choice, we bucked each […]

Not Your Grandma’s Simulation Anymore

Photo © Melanie Stetson Freeman / Christian Science Monitor / The Image Works.

In 1958, after pulling his drowning son from water and clearing his airways, Norwegian doll manufacturer Asmund S. Laerdal was asked to develop a manikin to teach others how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The doll became known as […]

Go to Top