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

Sexual Harassment by Doctors, and Signs of Growing Acceptance for HIPAA Privacy Laws

Here's an anonymous post from a new nurse graduate looking for advice about how to handle sexual harassment by a doctor. How would you advise her? And this post is a cautionary tale for all clinicians who've ever been tempted by curiosity about a patient: it describes just how easy it is for hospital information systems to detect when someone has violated HIPAA (short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy laws by accessing a patient's record when they shouldn't.

2016-11-21T13:25:50-05:00July 8th, 2009|nursing perspective, students|2 Comments
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Bloggers Write about Living with Post–Breast Cancer Lymphedema

This month AJN features the first of a two-part article on post–breast cancer lymphedema, a debilitating sequelae to treatment for breast cancer that’s characterized by the abnormal accumulation of lymph in the arm, shoulder, breast, or chest. In editing this article, I was struck by the sense of isolation reported by many of those who develop this condition, which can be visibly disfiguring and functionally disabling, and for which there is no cure. I wondered whether any survivors were using the blogosphere to forge connections. Here's what I found . . .

2016-11-21T13:26:09-05:00June 30th, 2009|healthcare social media, nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment
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When Poor Oral Care Causes Death

asphyxiaAJN2 AJN’s June feature article

“Take care of your teeth”—it’s something we’re told as soon as we’re old enough to hold a toothbrush. But it’s not so straightforward for the nursing personnel who provide oral care in nursing homes. According to a 2000 Surgeon General report on oral health,  “Mouth care is often considered an unpleasant task and is often delegated to nursing auxiliaries, who have even less oral health training than registered nursing staff.”

This month AJN features a case study of a patient that proves this point.  A severely disabled man received such poor oral care from nursing home personnel that his oral and nasopharyngeal secretions built up (“inspissated”), and he died from asphyxia. The lead author, Joseph A. Prahlow, was the pathologist in charge of the autopsy; the article features graphic photos of the thickened secretions that blocked his airway. A companion article by two dentists, Pamela S. Stein and Robert G. Henry, gives nurses suggestions […]

2017-07-06T12:36:07-04:00June 15th, 2009|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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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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