nursing perspective Archives - Page 52 of 157

As Sepsis Awareness Increases and Guidelines Change, Timing Remains Crucial

By Amanda Anderson, a critical care nurse and graduate student in New York City who is currently doing a graduate placement at AJN two days a week.

stopwatch/wikimedia commons

September was Sepsis Awareness Month, but the urgency of the issue didn’t disappear when the month ended. I still remember my first day in the medical intensive care unit (MICU) I’d soon call home. I was shadowing the charge nurse, and an admission had just come in from the ED.

“Here, we need a CVP setup.” A crinkly bag of normal saline and a matching package containing something evidently important were shoved into my hands—a medical football passed to the only open player.

Very quickly, I would learn what a CVP, or central venous pressure, was and to monitor it. I would learn all about sepsis, and septic shock, and the treatment of its devastating process. Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) was a primer for my care in this unit, and on my first day off of orientation, I was entrusted with one of its full-blown victims: Septic shock from pneumonia, causing respiratory, renal, and heart failure. Learning to spike a bag of saline for a CVP transducer was just my first step into the vast and complicated land of sepsis management.

This was 2007. Sometimes, as in all hospitals, care was delayed and septic patients sat without timely treatment for hours. Back then, we tubed people, snowed people, and flooded people. […]

Amanda Anderson, MPA, MSN, RN2016-11-21T13:03:47-05:00October 6th, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments

10 Good Things About Being an Older Nurse

Alice Facente, MSN, RN, is a community health education nurse in Connecticut. Her Reflections essays, “At Her Mercy” and “The Dirtiest House in Town,” were published, respectively, in the August 2009 and January 2010 issues of AJN.

Puddle Reflection/by joiseyshowaa, via Flickr

I recently passed a professional career milestone: 40 years since I’d graduated from nursing school. When I began my career, nurses still wore white starched caps and white uniforms. I don’t know how we accomplished everything we did with those impractical caps perched on our heads. The shocking realization that four decades had so quickly passed forced me to think about all of the benefits of being a mature, experienced nurse. Right off the top of my head, I thought of 10 things (and yes, these are generalizations and exceptions exist).

1. Older nurses are often more empathetic. Chances are that in the last several decades every older nurse has been a patient, undergone surgery, become a parent and possibly a grandparent, encountered personal financial challenges, experienced the death of a close friend or family member, and much more.
2. Death is not so frightening. Nurses have cared for people at all stages of the life cycle and know that, with planning and […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:03:49-05:00October 3rd, 2014|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|11 Comments

Unbalanced: The Art of Changing Nursing Roles

Bull and Monkey/graphite, charcoal, acrylic on vellum/by julianna paradisi

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

The culture shock experienced by new nurses making the transition from student to professional is well documented. Less well documented is the culture shock seasoned nurses face when changing jobs. Not all nurses are the same. Neither are all nursing jobs.

Working in an unfamiliar setting means being the new guy. You may have been in the top 10 of your nursing class for grades and clinical excellence. Or you may have held a position of leadership in your previous unit. In your new job, you are unknown and unproven.

For nurses changing jobs from high-acuity areas—ICU or bone marrow transplant, say—to an ambulatory clinic, the stress is twofold.

First, there’s a period of grieving the loss of hard-won skills and certifications that are not applicable in the new role.

Then there’s the shock that your skills and experiences did not prepare you for the outpatient setting. Often, the first realization is that high-acuity patients have central lines, so a nurse migrating from such a practice area may not have strong peripheral […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2016-11-21T13:03:49-05:00October 1st, 2014|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|10 Comments

AJN in October: Getting Inpatients Walking, Calciphylaxis, Nurses and Hurricane Sandy, More

AJN’s October issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Calciphylaxis is most often seen in patients with end-stage renal disease. “Calciphylaxis: An Unusual Case with an Unusual Outcome” describes the rare case of a patient diagnosed with calciphylaxis with normal renal function, and how the nursing staff helped develop and implement an intensive treatment plan that led to the patient’s full recovery. This CE feature offers 2.5 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article. To further explore the topic, listen to a podcast interview with the author (this and other podcasts are accessible via the Behind the Article page on our Web site or, if you’re in our iPad app, by tapping the icon on the first page of the article).

The adverse effects of bed rest. Prolonged periods of immobility can have adverse effects for patients, such as functional decline and increased risk of falls. “A Mobility Program for an Inpatient Acute Care Medical Unit” describes how an evidence-based quality improvement project devised for and put to use on a general medical unit helped mitigate the adverse effects of bed rest. This CE feature offers 2 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article. […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:03:50-05:00September 30th, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

If You Want to Write, Do It (and Skip the ‘Weaseling Qualifiers’)

Photo by mezone, via Flickr.

Are you one of those people—nurse or otherwise—who daydreams about writing (a personal essay about a formative experience, an article about a quality improvement project you took part in, a blog post about some aspect of nursing) but can’t seem to find the proper way to get started?

Since the weekend is coming and the October issue of AJN is now live on our Web site, it seems a good time to draw attention to “On Writing: Just Do It,” the editorial by Shawn Kennedy, AJN‘s editor-in-chief. Kennedy points out the one idea common to most writing advice: you have to start somewhere. You have to do it, and learn from doing it, and then keep doing it. Or, as she puts it:

One key to becoming a good writer—or a good anything—is persistence.

But the editorial also gives a range of other excellent tips from Kennedy and several experts in the field, and quotes writing advice found in AJN issues through the decades. My favorite bit is from a 1977 editorial by former AJN editor Thelma Schorr:

“ [the writer] will use the active voice and not shirk his [or her] responsibility by introducing a statement with such weaseling qualifiers as ‘It is considered that…’ or ‘It is generally believed that…’”

What a great word: “weaseling.” It’s about as far as you can get from the jargon that afflicts so much academic […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:03:51-05:00September 26th, 2014|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment

As Sepsis Awareness Increases and Guidelines Change, Timing Remains Crucial

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10 Good Things About Being an Older Nurse

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Unbalanced: The Art of Changing Nursing Roles

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AJN in October: Getting Inpatients Walking, Calciphylaxis, Nurses and Hurricane Sandy, More

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If You Want to Write, Do It (and Skip the ‘Weaseling Qualifiers’)

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