Stop the Eye Rolling: Welcoming Future Nurses to the Profession

Rosemary Taylor

One perennial topic that comes up among nurses on social media is the extent to which many nurses have been treated unkindly by colleagues at some points in their careers. New nurses and nursing students are, for obvious reasons, particularly vulnerable to rudeness and other forms of unprofessional conduct. The Viewpoint in the January issue of AJN,Stop the Eye Rolling: Supporting Nursing Students in Learning,” by Rosemary Taylor, PhD, RN, CNL, assistant professor of nursing at the University of New Hampshire, makes the case that nursing students often face an “unwelcoming introduction” to the profession when they venture out of the classroom for clinical instruction.

Writes Clark:

Nursing students are often targets of the kinds of incivility that can be classified as vertical violence. The majority of these incivilities are “low risk,” as described in Cynthia Clark’s “continuum of incivility,” with eye rolling (“low risk”) just below sarcasm on one end of the spectrum and threatening behaviors and physical assault (“high risk”) on the other.

Citing her own students’ sometimes disheartening experiences, as well as Cynthia Clark’s book Creating and Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education, Taylor makes a convincing argument that “eye rolling, a seemingly trivial gesture, is in fact a particularly hurtful form of nonverbal aggression.”

Yet, says Taylor, these […]

2016 Nurse Faculty Scholars/AJN Mentored Writing Award Winner

AJN0916.Cover.OnlineAnd the Winner Is….

We’re pleased to announce that the winner of the 2016 Nurse Faculty Scholars/AJN Mentored Writing Award is Denise M. Eckerlin, BSN, RN, a predoctoral fellow at the University of Washington School of Nursing in Seattle. She won for her CE feature article published in the September issue of AJN,Military Sexual Trauma in Male Service Members.”

Eckerlin coauthored the article with her mentor, Andrea Kovalesky, PhD, RN, an associate professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Washington Bothell, and Matthew Jakupcak, PhD, a clinical psychologist and researcher at the Northwest Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center in the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle. She will receive an award certificate and $500. […]

A Room with A View: Physical Environments and Healing

By Betsy Todd, clinical editor, MPH, RN, CIC

Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN. All rights reserved. Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN. All rights reserved.

Computers, alarms, automated drug dispensing, complex medical protocols—the ways in which we provide care have changed a lot over the past 30 years. Has forced multitasking made us forget that, buried beneath the printouts and data, there is a human being in need of support?

In this month’s AJN, author Joy Washburn shares the story of David, a man with advanced Parkinson’s disease whose medical condition results in his transfer from a cheerful rehab setting to a long-term care bed in the same facility. While his old room in rehab overlooked gardens and a children’s play area, the new room faces a parking lot. To make matters worse, no one seems to have prepared David for the move, and many nurses erroneously assume that his advanced physical disability means that he is also cognitively impaired.   […]

The National Student Nurses Association: Always a Kick

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

IMG_2262Once again, the annual National Student Nurses Association (NSNA, www.nsna.org) convention was packed—full of high-energy, engaged nurses-to-be.  Approximately 3,000 attended this year’s meeting in Orlando from March 31 to April 3.

The NSNA meeting easily rivals those of other associations, with seemingly round-the-clock House of Delegates and state chapter caucuses (one could observe LOTS of pizza cartons moving between hotel and meeting rooms), a guidebook app, a daily convention newspaper, an impressive exhibit hall, professional motivational speakers (though motivation does not seem to be an issue with this group), award presentations, and a full slate of educational and career information sessions.

Nursing leaders and representatives from most major nursing organizations, including the ANA, National League for Nursing, American Red Cross, and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, were there to meet students and talk about initiatives to get these future nurses ready for the real world. They received lots of practical advice, including sessions on interprofessional collaboration, disaster nursing, how they can get involved on boards, legal aspects of licensure, tips and practice for taking the licensing exam . . . even one session on how to get started writing, led by yours truly! […]

Well On His Way: A Nursing Professor’s Humbling Experience

Holding On / D'Arcy Norman, via Flickr Holding On / D’Arcy Norman, via Flickr

By Martina Harris, EdD, RN, a UC Foundation assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing

It was 6 am and I was on my way to make patient assignments for my first semester nursing students. Inside the long term-care facility, the hallways were quiet, the majority of patients still in bed. I made my way to the second floor to begin identifying and assigning patients for my fundamental nursing students. Standing at the nurse’s station, my focus was on finding patients who would provide students varied opportunities to reinforce the basic skills they’d been learning at campus lab.

The charge nurse approached me and asked if I would be willing to assign a student to Mr. Hugh, an 84-year-old who was proving to be very “complicated.” Assuming that “complicated” meant that his care required lots of psychomotor tasks, I agreed to her request. She then explained that this patient had been using his call light frequently, but that each time the staff responded, he only wanted someone to sit and visit with him. Though this didn’t seem an ideal opportunity for a student to practice basic nursing skills, I felt the gracious thing to do was to take the assignment.

In the hallway, my group of fundamental nursing students huddled together, dressed in their white uniforms and nervously awaiting the start of their first clinical […]

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