Nurses spend more time with patients than most other types of providers and have unique insight into patient care and the the healthcare system.

Tragedy into Policy: A Hepatitis C Outbreak and a Study of Nevada RNs Lead to New Protections for Whistleblowers

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

In 2008, more than 62,000 people who had undergone procedures at one of two southern Nevada endoscopy clinics were notified that “they might have been exposed to bloodborne pathogens, including hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and HIV, as a result of unsafe injection practices.” As author Lisa Black reports in this month’s CE–Original Research feature, a subsequent investigation by federal and state agencies found multiple breaches of infection control protocols. Indeed, 115 patients were found to be “either certainly or presumptively infected” with HCV through the reuse of contaminated medication vials.

Especially distressing was strong anecdotal evidence that because of a general fear of workplace retaliation, staff at the two clinics had often failed to report unsafe patient care conditions. At the request of the Nevada legislature, a study was conducted to examine Nevada RNs’ experiences with workplace attitudes toward patient advocacy activities. Black was the principal investigator. […]

2016-11-21T13:12:47-05:00June 7th, 2011|nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment
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Bullying Wars: Theresa Brown vs. ‘the entire physician profession’

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

On May 11, an op-ed piece written by nurse and New York Times blogger Theresa Brown on bullying by physicians caused some physicians to protest (full disclosure: Brown’s honest and moving ethical meditation on a very different topic, “Right Treatment, Right Patient?”, was just published in our June issue).

Notable among her critics was Kevin Pho of the popular blog, Kevin MD, who wrote that Brown “unfairly blames doctors for hospital bullying.” He claimed that Brown uses her writing outlet to “metaphorically bully the entire physician profession.” Another commentary (by physician Ford Vox, writing in The Atlantic Monthly) accused Brown of publicly “drawing and quartering” her colleagues.

Spare me, please. Brown used a recent personal encounter to illustrate a problem that is, unfortunately, commonplace in hospitals.  She used it as a lede and parlayed the story into an insightful piece about bullying in hospitals.  (From experiences I had and witnessed during my clinical years, I actually thought it was a fairly mild example.) Ironically, the strong language used to counter Brown’s commentary made it seem that physicians were trying to bully Brown into silence because she’d spoken out. As if to say: how dare a nurse challenge physician behavior?  […]

2016-11-21T13:12:51-05:00June 1st, 2011|career, healthcare social media, nursing perspective|7 Comments
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Memorial Day Weekend Notes from the Nursosphere Blog Roundup

As I walked into the exam room and introduced myself as a nurse practitioner, the patient announced she was “forced” to come to our clinic and “wasn’t allowed to see a real doctor” downtown. I was slightly taken aback. Here I was, running on time, in a pretty good mood and ready to assess and treat to the best of my abilities, and then WHAM. I took a deep breath and realized she wasn’t slamming NPs; she had a grudge against military providers, regardless of education background.

That’s from a recent post by a U.S. Air Force family nurse practitioner (NP) who’s been blogging from Afghanistan. She’s home now, and the post, about being discriminated against by a patient—not because she’s an NP, but because she’s a military provider—is worth noting as we prepare for another Memorial Day Weekend.

Are you a nursing student, or just ready for a change in your nursing career? Curious about various nursing specialties and what they really involve? Codeblog has been running a helpful series of posts, each of which focuses on an interview with a particular type of nurse. The latest is with a cardiac catheterization lab nurse.

Nothing like a medication error to ruin everyone’s day. Lisa at In the Round has a useful post that lists the eight “rights” of medication administration.

“So there is very little, in the end, I won’t share. There are some things, however, that […]

2016-11-21T13:12:52-05:00May 27th, 2011|nursing perspective|2 Comments
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What Is the Role of the Staff Nurse on a Medical Emergency Team?

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

There is strong evidence that a hospital’s use of a medical emergency team (MET) helps to decrease the rates of in-hospital cardiac arrests, unplanned ICU admissions, and overall hospital mortality. (A MET is similar to a rapid response team, but is typically led by a physician rather than by a nurse.)

But our understanding of such teams is incomplete. Nurse researcher Margaret Pusateri and colleagues set out to explore, in particular, the role of non-ICU staff nurses during a MET call. They wanted to better understand such nurses’ familiarity with and perceptions of the MET, and possibly, to increase the team’s effectiveness. So they sent a survey to 388 non-ICU staff nurses at a large urban teaching hospital; 131 nurses (34%) responded.

The authors report on the results in May’s CE feature (for optimum reading, open the PDF version). Among their findings:

  • Nearly three-quarters of the respondents had participated in a MET call.
  • The most common actions they reported taking during the call included relaying patient history, initiating the call, and documenting MET data.
  • But fewer than half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statements “I feel comfortable with my role as a member of the MET” and “I know what my role as a member of the MET is.” […]
2016-11-21T13:12:55-05:00May 25th, 2011|nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment
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Farewell to Nurses Week 2011

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So Nurses Week 2011 has come and gone. I was in Malta at the start of it—at the 2011 International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting in Valletta—and in New York City at the end of it.  From two disparate locations, there was a singular thread: nurses seeking information to improve the lives of their patients and themselves.

In Malta, there were over 2,000 nurses from all over the world. Some participated as their nation’s representatives in the Council of National Representatives (see an earlier post describing ICN activities); some came for the educational sessions, or to share experiences or initiatives that have made a difference in the lives of nurses or patients. (I wrote about two of these moving stories.) The conference also served as a reminder of how much I regret not being fluent in another language—four years of high school French and a French-speaking grandfather helped a little, but there’s nothing like meeting colleagues who speak two or three languages (their own native language, English, and usually a bit of another one) to make you realize how necessary it is to be multilingual in today’s world.

On one day, I was eating lunch with colleagues from Brazil and Belgium. […]

2016-11-21T13:12:58-05:00May 18th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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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.
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