The End of Summer Is Nearly Here: Use Those Vacations

Every July 4th at the end of the day, a friend used to say, “Well, summer is almost over.” And summer did seem to fly by in a blink after that day. Now here we are again, putting the summer of 2018 to bed as we face Labor Day weekend. This last chance at summer always seems a little sad. It’s the marker of so many things—the end of lifeguards at the beach, the last chance to get school supplies, the beginning of another school year. (That includes nursing school. Here’s some good advice for new nursing students that we collected a while back from our readers.)

Like many others, I recently spent a week on vacation with family. It took some doing to get things organized and some working ahead to meet deadlines, but it was worth it. As a manager, there’s no one to keep certain things moving while you’re gone. So the week leading up to vacation is a frenzied time, organizing and working ahead to cover deadlines, and getting ready to leave. Then, once back, there’s another frenzied time to try to catch up. My strategy is to check email once a day while on vacation. It keeps what I have to deal with […]

2018-08-31T07:59:34-04:00August 31st, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, wellness|0 Comments
Read More

Nurses Retiring from Nursing–or Not

Many of my nursing school classmates are retiring. A few said they were “done” with nursing and health care and with working, and stopped as soon as they were able to afford not working. They keep busy traveling, babysitting grandchildren, or just taking it easy. Some are trying their hand at something totally different—becoming a docent in a museum, for example, or taking courses to be a travel agent.

Keeping a connection to nursing.

Retired nurse Diane McCarthy volunteers in the neonatal ICU at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus. Millennial nurses such as Erin Bergmann (left) say they benefit from having more experienced nurses like McCarthy on the unit. Photo by Kyle Robertson.

Most people I know, however, still want to keep a connection with nursing and have transitioned into part-time or consulting roles. After fulfilling and demanding careers, many older nurses still have a lot to offer and are not ready to completely retire from nursing. As one colleague has aptly termed it, “preferment”—doing what you prefer, when you prefer, and with […]

2018-08-09T11:10:56-04:00August 9th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career|2 Comments
Read More

AJN Wants You! A Call for Peer Reviewers and Authors

nurse typing on keyboardTake your career to the next step—become a peer reviewer or author.

For over 118 years, AJN has presented its readers with timely and informative content to support best nursing practice and to examine issues of the day that are relevant to nurses and the profession. While that’s still our aim today, content development is more complex—it now includes peer review; fact-checking to ensure accuracy; citing evidence from the literature; ethical guidelines that govern editor, reviewer, and author behavior; careful editing to meet standards for quality writing; transparency to avoid bias and conflicts of interest. We’re proud of our commitment to high standards, and our success is borne out by the many awards we’ve received—more than any other nursing journal.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without the help of peer reviewers and authors, who commit to making the content we publish the best that it can be: timely, accurate, readable, and useful.

Peer reviewers are essential to any scholarly journal.

Peer-reviewing is also an excellent way for fledgling writers to better understand what editors look for in manuscripts. We welcome new reviewers who have expertise in nursing, are current with the literature and practice in their area of expertise, have a master’s degree or higher (or a BSN and certification in a specialty area), and are willing to review three to six manuscripts a […]

2018-07-12T11:15:23-04:00July 12th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, writing|0 Comments
Read More

From Staff Nurse to CEO

Regina Cunningham, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, and Kevin Sowers, MSN, RN, FAAN, both started their nursing careers as staff oncology nurses. Today, Cunningham is chief executive officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; Sowers is president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

As they told AJN in our May Profiles article, neither necessarily envisioned themselves as high-level leaders. So how did they get to where they are today, and what can fellow nurses learn from their experiences?

TAKING CHANCES

After getting a master’s degree in nursing administration, and while earning a doctorate, Cunningham (photo at right) worked her way into progressively larger leadership roles within oncology nursing. Her experiences as a nurse manager and a nursing director led her to become the chief nursing officer at a New Jersey cancer center. Then, after serving as senior director for cancer nursing at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, she worked in nursing leadership at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

It was there, when the hospital’s chief nurse retired, that Cunningham took a chance she wasn’t sure about by applying for the open […]

2018-05-10T14:55:24-04:00May 9th, 2018|nursing career|1 Comment
Read More

Are You a Nurse Thinking About Retirement?

There are many ways to retire.

According to figures from the ANA, over 500,000 nurses are expected to retire by 2022. That’s a lot of experience exiting the workforce. But, if many of them are like my friends and colleagues, they may “fail retirement,” as one friend put it—she went back to work part-time. Another colleague seems busier than ever and continues to contribute to nursing through writing, teaching, and mentoring. And another said she wanted to do something entirely different, so she works part-time as a realtor and renovates houses. I know many who support their children’s careers by babysitting almost full time. But many don’t think about or prepare for this major change.

A potentially abrupt transition.

The fact is, nursing is an intense profession—whether working in a hospital or community setting or teaching. Most of us are fervent multitaskers, involved in several projects at once. To abruptly move from a fast-paced role to having nothing to do is not an easy transition for many of us.

With our April issue, we debuted a new column called Transitions, aimed at nurses who may be thinking about the next step in their careers and when to leave their present position, either retiring completely or “slowing down.” The new column provides a nice balance to our […]

2018-05-02T06:53:14-04:00May 2nd, 2018|Nursing, nursing career|0 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