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

‘Patient dies, nurse cries.’ Submit to AJN’s Reflections column.

Photo by mezone, via Flickr.

“Patient dies, nurse cries.” That’s how we sometimes refer to the Reflections column, the personal essay about some aspect of health care that appears inside AJN’s back cover each month. It’s the kind of self-protective humor you develop at a nursing journal. We’re not making light of real pain. Often, in fact, we’re quite moved by submissions, both ones we accept for publication and ones we don’t. Nor is every Reflections actually about a patient dying or a nurse grieving. Most, probably, are not. […]

2016-11-21T13:34:13-05:00April 20th, 2009|nursing perspective|1 Comment
Read More

Chew, Don’t Inhale! In Praise of Meal Breaks for Nurses

Nurses leaving for lunch break at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Nurses leaving for lunch break at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

I get in a really bad mood when I’m hungry and can’t eat. According to the NY Times, I’m not alone. Before coming to AJN, I worked in a direct patient care setting and never seemed to find the time to eat, whether in the inpatient or outpatient areas. There was always something that needed to be done that couldn’t wait. […]

2020-02-07T11:30:54-05:00April 15th, 2009|nursing perspective|0 Comments
Read More

Red Cross Reinstates Chief Nurse Position and Appoints Sharon Stanley

American Red Cross Headquarters, Washington, DC. Photo by Laura Padgett, via Flickr.

Sharon A. R. Stanley, PhD, RN, RS, has been named chief nurse and director of disaster health and mental health services by the American Red Cross. AJN is pleased to see that the Red Cross decided to renew the position of Chief Nurse—especially now that its Red Cross Nursing Service is poised to celebrate its 100th anniversary next month. As we reported in AJN last July, the organization’s leadership gave early retirement to Chief Nurse Nancy McKelvey, and cut the position as part of its plan to deal with a $200 million deficit. Our report was the basis for an emergency resolution at the 2008 American Nurses Association (ANA) meeting of its House of Delegates, in which the delegates directed the ANA to write and urge the Red Cross to reinstate the position. […]

2016-11-21T13:35:23-05:00April 10th, 2009|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments
Read More

Donna Shalala To Head New IOM Commission on Future of Nursing

University of Miama President Donna Shalala. Photo by Knight Foundation, via Flickr.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is supporting a new Institute of Medicine (IOM) Commission on the Future of Nursing. The chairperson will be University of Miami President Donna Shalala  (also former Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Clinton Administration); the commission will include a few nurses but also others from various private and public sectors. The foundation has been investing significantly in nursing in recent years, with projects such as the Executive Nurse Fellowships, an interdisciplinary nursing research initiative, Transforming Care At the Bedside, and the AARP Center to Champion Nursing.

The commission is not expected to start its work until later this year, but nursing should applaud the RWJ Foundation for recognizing the importance of nursing and being willing to invest in it. My money is betting that this commission will result in significant recommendations—instead of unread and tepid reports designed to collect dust.

-Diana Mason, AJN editor-in-chief

Bookmark and Share

2016-11-21T13:35:39-05:00April 9th, 2009|nursing perspective, nursing research|2 Comments
Read More

Who’s a Nurse? The Leech Test at AJN

"Leech dance," by Thejaswswi, from Flickr.

The editorial staff of AJN includes both RNs and non-nurses. You can always tell who the RNs are by their reaction to photos of ugly wounds. The nurses love them and some of the non-nurses don’t even want to look at the photos. Case in point: the April CE article on leeches for wound healing. I think the photos are great. But many of the non-nurses find them disgusting. Are nurses simply sensitized to looking at ghastly images of wounds and abnormalities? Or do those who become nurses have a different sensibility? As a teenager, I used to love to babysit the children of a physician. After the kids were in bed, I’d comb through his medical library in search of the odd and gruesome images. I found them fascinating. I look forward to the New England Journal of Medicine each week and turn first to the Images in Clinical Medicine. A bit weird, I suppose. Or is it?

–Diana J. Mason, RN, AJN editor-in-chief emeritus

Bookmark and Share

2016-11-21T13:36:36-05:00April 2nd, 2009|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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