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A Child’s Story, or Why She Became a Nurse

Illustration by Anne Horst. All rights reserved.

Day in and day out, a child lives in fear. Her stomach often twists in knots of pain for hours before the pain fades away. The doctors can find no medical reason for the pain. Her mother angrily accuses her of faking it, of being more trouble than she’s worth. The child is often told how stupid she is. Though her father sometimes protects her, at times his medication doesn’t work and he transforms from a caring protective father into a crazed abusive one. Even when the child is unharmed, she stays in a constant state of panic as soon as she walks in her front door.

That’s the opening paragraph of this month’s Reflections essay. “A Child’s Story” is a tough read. It’s about child abuse, helplessness, the will to endure, about those who help and those who don’t. In the end, it’s a hopeful story, despite everything. The story is also a reminder of just how much the decision to become a nurse means to some people. Here’s a brief excerpt, but we hope you’ll read the entire short essay (click on the article title above).—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:04:25-05:00June 30th, 2014|career, nursing perspective|2 Comments

AJN’s July Issue: Diabetes and Puberty, Getting Patient Input, Quality Measures, Professional Boundaries, More

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

Diabetes and puberty. On our cover this month, 17-year-old Trenton Jantzi tests his blood sugar before football practice. Trenton has type 1 diabetes and is one of a growing number of children and adolescents in the United States who have been diagnosed with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The physical and psychological changes of puberty can add to the challenges of diabetes management. Nurses are well positioned to help patients and their families understand and meet these challenges.

To learn more more about the physical and behavioral changes experienced by adolescents with diabetes, see this month’s CE feature, “Diabetes and Puberty: A Glycemic Challenge,” and earn 2.6 CE credits by taking the test that follows the article. And don’t miss a podcast interview with the author, […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:04:26-05:00June 27th, 2014|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

Providing Culturally Sensitive Care: It Takes More Than Knowledge

By Karen Roush, AJN clinical managing editor. Photos by the author.

One Saturday a few weeks ago I grabbed my camera and headed out to spend the afternoon taking photographs around the city. I ended up wandering around the streets of Chinatown, photographing the street life—the rows of fresh fish on piles of ice, the colorful patterns of vegetables in crates outside shops, old women in variations of plaid and flowered housedresses lined up on a bench, children scattering clusters of pigeons.

Eventually I happened upon a vigorous and highly skilled game of handball in a park. The competitors were predominately young Asian men, though there were a few Hispanic men playing too. Standing next to me, a young man was telling his friend about a clever way a mutual friend had devised to get out of paying a parking ticket. If you live in New York, or almost any big city, you will earn yourself a parking ticket or two at some point. Intrigued by this man’s idea, I asked him if it actually worked and he assured me it did. Then he rolled his eyes and said, “Oh no, I shouldn’t have said anything. Once the white people know, that’s the end of it!” […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:04:26-05:00June 25th, 2014|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment

Takeaways from 2014 ANA Membership Assembly

Pamela Cipriano, incoming ANA president

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So far, so good

In June, the American Nurses Association (ANA) convened its second membership assembly, which included representatives of constituent and state nurses associations, individual members groups and affiliated entities, plus the board of directors. (This is the structure that replaced the House of Delegates as the official governing body of the ANA, when ANA restructured in 2012. See our 2012 report on the restructuring.)

The assembly was preceded by ANA’s annual Lobby Day on June 12th, in which nurses visited legislators on Capitol Hill to talk up legislation important to nursing, like bills on staffing, safe patient handling, and one that would remove barriers to efficient home care services.

This membership assembly was subdued—perhaps a gift for Karen Daley, the outgoing two-term president who shepherded the organization through a turbulent period of change. There were no contentious resolutions to deal with this time—there were only three issues brought to the group through dialogue forums, to develop recommendations for the board of directors:

scope of practice (full practice authority for all RNs)
integrating palliative care into health care delivery
promoting interprofessional health care teams

While the scope of practice topic was ostensibly promoting full practice for ALL RNs, most […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:04:27-05:00June 23rd, 2014|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments

Still a Nurse: A Shift in Professional Identity

The June Reflections, “Making It Fit,” is a frank exploration of the ways health care professionals form separate cultures within each institution. It’s told by a newly minted advanced practice nurse whose previous job had been as a staff nurse in an ED. Now she’s taken a job as a psychiatric NP and finds herself on uncertain ground:

When I walked onto the unit my first day, expecting to be embraced by the nurses, I was dumbfounded and hurt that my own profession didn’t accept me with open arms. The inpatient unit is a melting pot of professions, and I found that I didn’t necessarily fit with the doctors, the social workers, or the staff nurses.

The author finds herself alone, neither nurse nor physician but instead something in between. As she describes her process of finding a new kind of nursing identity, she is very clear that this is not a case of nurses “eating their young.” Rather, it’s about finding a new normal. The short essay is an honest, smart look at career advancement and the associated challenges we hear less about, and is well worth a read.—Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:04:29-05:00June 19th, 2014|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments

A Child’s Story, or Why She Became a Nurse

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AJN’s July Issue: Diabetes and Puberty, Getting Patient Input, Quality Measures, Professional Boundaries, More

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Providing Culturally Sensitive Care: It Takes More Than Knowledge

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Takeaways from 2014 ANA Membership Assembly

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Still a Nurse: A Shift in Professional Identity

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