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

Working a Shift with Theresa Brown

bookBy Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Many of you may be familiar with Theresa Brown, nurse and author of Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between, as well as a blogger for the New York Times. Brown also writes a quarterly column for AJN called What I’m Reading (her latest column, which will be free until August 15, is in the July issue). Her new book, The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives, will come out in September, and I was able to read a prepublication copy. (You can pre-order it.)

I don’t usually write book reviews. I think of most books like food: what one person finds delicious may be less savory to another. But I’m making an exception because this book is an accurate and well-written portrayal of nursing (at last!).

Anyone who wants to know what it’s like to be a nurse in a hospital today should read this book. Patients, families, and non-nurse colleagues tend to see nurses as ever-present yet often in the background, quietly moving from room to room, attending to patients, and distributing medications or charting at computers. But what they don’t understand about what nurses do is what Brown so deftly describes—the cognitive multitasking and constant reordering of priorities that occur in the course of one shift as Brown manages the needs of four very […]

2016-11-21T13:02:17-05:00July 20th, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|3 Comments
Read More

An Unending Series of Challenges: APIC Highlights the ‘New Normal’ in Infection Control

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

Panelists to the Opening Plenary, Mary Lou Manning, Michael Bell, CDC, Russell Olmsted, Trinity Health, Phillip W. Smith, Nebraska Biocontainment Unit discuss various topics pertaining to infection control. APIC panelists (APIC president Mary Lou Manning; Michael Bell, CDC; Russell Olmsted, Trinity Health; Phillip W. Smith, Nebraska Biocontainment Unit) discuss various topics pertaining to infection control.

At the 42nd annual conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), held in late June in Nashville, experts from around the world shared information and insights aimed at infection preventionists but of interest to nurses in many practice settings.

APIC president Mary Lou Manning, PhD, CRNP, CIC, FAAN, opened the first plenary with the observation that to be presented with an unending series of challenges is the “new normal” in infection control and prevention. Collaboration is more important than ever in health care, she said, and “there is strength in our combined efforts.”

Cathryn Murphy, […]

2016-11-21T13:02:19-05:00July 6th, 2015|infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
Read More

AJN July Issue: Hepatitis Update, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Nursing’s Blind Spots, More

World_Hepatitis_Day_AJN_July_CoverOn the cover of AJN‘s July issue is the 2015 logo for World Hepatitis Day, which takes place on July 28. About 400 million people around the globe live with viral hepatitis, a disease that kills 1.4 million people every year—approximately 4,000 a day. While incidences of hepatitis A and B have declined in the United States in recent years, hepatitis C infection, formerly stable or in decline, has risen at an alarming rate. To learn more about hepatitis in the U.S.—and the role nurses can play in prevention and treatment—read our July CE, “Viral Hepatitis: New U.S. Screening Recommendations, Assessment Tools, and Treatments.”

The article reviews the epidemiology and diagnosis of viral hepatitis, new screening recommendations and innovations in assessment and treatment, and an updated action plan from the Department of Health and Human Services, in which nurses can play an important role in the coordination of care.

Some other articles of note in the June issue:

• CE feature: “Nursing Management of Patients with Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome.” An often debilitating condition, Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome (EDS) refers to a group of hereditary connective tissue disorders that has historically been misunderstood and underdiagnosed due to a lack of familiarity with its signs and symptoms. As awareness and recognition of the syndrome improve, nurses are increasingly likely to care for patients with EDS. This article gives an […]

2016-11-21T13:02:20-05:00July 1st, 2015|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments
Read More

Surveys Aside, One Crucial Precondition for Real Patient Satisfaction

callbellBy Amanda Anderson, a critical care nurse and graduate student in New York City currently doing a graduate placement at AJN. 

During this hospital stay, after you pressed the call button, how often did you get help as soon as you wanted it?
1. Never
2. Sometimes
3. Usually
4. Always
5. I never pressed the call button

Everyone is talking about patient satisfaction these days. Purposeful rounding, responsiveness, and customer service are discussed in meetings, on blogs, and in conversations at work. An entire science has been created out of satisfaction, with whole journals devoted to patient experience and paid officers tracking scores and strategies. Since hospital reimbursement is linked to how happy patients are, we’ve suddenly gotten serious about satisfaction.

But behind the sterile questions on the HCAHPS survey, real stories about real people reside. I find myself often forgetting the flesh and blood that’s represented by each checked box, and am learning to realize that, while satisfaction is something to be striven for, dissatisfaction is something to be learned from.

In a series of posts, starting with this one, I’ll share stories of my own missteps—ones that may have caused my patients to answer never instead of always to questions about my care. The events described here helped me realize that, score or no score, responding to call bells actually matters at the human level:

Sarah […]

2016-11-21T13:02:20-05:00June 29th, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|9 Comments
Read More

Breastfeeding’s Benefits vs. Fear of Infection Risks from a Mother’s New Tattoo

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

scalesPeople, it seems, still have strong feelings about tattoos—and about breastfeeding, too. This month, a judge in Sydney, Australia, ordered the newly tattooed mother of an 11-month-old baby to stop breastfeeding. The judge maintained that the mother’s tattooing the previous month presented “an unacceptable risk of harm” to the baby because the mother could have contracted HIV or hepatitis B (HBV) during the procedure.

The woman had tested negative for both HIV and hepatitis B since she received the tattoos. But poor aseptic technique during tattooing can result in the transmission of bloodborne infections, and people infected with HIV or HBV may not immediately test positive for either virus.

However, while HIV can be transmitted in breast milk, studies indicate that breastfeeding by hepatitis B surface antigen-positive women does not pose a significant risk of infection to their infants.

The theoretical risks put forth by the judge in this case were no match for the well-documented benefits of breastfeeding, and the injunction has already been overturned on appeal.

Still, the case raises interesting questions about how risks to a breastfeeding baby are determined. What if the father had been the person with new tattoos, and he still had a sexual relationship with the baby’s mother? It’s unscientific (and discriminatory) to […]

2016-11-21T13:02:21-05:00June 24th, 2015|nursing perspective|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