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

Daughter or Nurse? Caught Between Roles When a Father Is Hospitalized

“Word moves quickly that a patient on the unit has a daughter who is an RN.”

That’s from this month’s Reflections essay, “The Other Side,” in which a nurse struggles with her own mounting helplessness as her father’s hospital stay following surgery is unexpectedly prolonged.

On the other side.

The author finds herself in an uncomfortable in-between position, one that may be familiar to other nurses who have had family members in the hospital.

“I am an outsider, a family member on the other side. I know there is information not shared with me, information the health care team keeps to themselves. These conversations take place in whispered voices outside the room—conversations I have been a part of in the recent past, on my unit.”

[…]

2019-05-02T10:59:38-04:00May 1st, 2019|family experience, narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective, writing|0 Comments
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Nurses Concerned About Removal of Key Children’s Health Advocate at EPA

At the end of September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with no explanation, placed the director of the Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP), Dr. Ruth Etzel, on administrative leave. This sidelining of a vocal children’s health advocate as the office was heading into October, Children’s Environmental Health Month, was concerning for all who work in children’s environmental health.

The OCHP’s essential role.

The OCHP was created under an executive order in 1997 as public consciousness was increasing about the special vulnerabilities of children to environmental hazards. It is housed in the Office of the Administrator so as to be able to provide guidance to EPA leadership and ensure that children’s health protection is prioritized throughout the agency’s activities. This is essential because, as many have observed, children are not simply miniature adults—what they eat, drink, and breathe can profoundly affect their physical and mental development, while their hand-to-mouth and on-the-floor activities put them at greater risk for exposures from environmental hazards.

The office provides essential resources for health professionals and the public on environmental health issues such as environmental triggers of asthma and how parents can reduce exposures, reducing exposures to lead, and air quality in schools. The OCHP-produced report, 

2018-10-31T11:54:23-04:00October 31st, 2018|environmental health, health care policy, nursing perspective, Public health|0 Comments
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Reexamining Resilience

Words matter.

As I have been presenting at various nursing gatherings and conferences about the topic of resilience in light of work-related grief, I have been struck anew by the definitions of resilience that I find in the literature.

  • The ability to return to a state of normalcy or to “bounce back” from adversity or trauma and remain focused and optimistic about the future (Dyer & McGuinness, 1996).
  • The “ability to face adverse situations, remain focused, and continue to be optimistic for the future” (Kester & Wei, 2018).

While I understand and very much appreciate the intent (and necessity) behind these definitions, I have to ask whether we are adequately exploring the meanings of the words used within these definitions and the implications for what nurses should expect of themselves in seeking to be resilient.

Does short-term resilience look different from long-term resilience?

For example, in the definition presented by Dyer and McGuinness, a resilient nurse should be able to return to a state of normalcy. There is certainly a need for nurses to be able to maintain a steadfast mind and emotional state in the short-term moments of acute crises with their patients. A nurse returning to work after a difficult shift just the day before has […]

2018-10-23T10:04:47-04:00October 23rd, 2018|Nursing, nursing perspective, wellness|0 Comments
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Why Do Journalists Ignore Nurses?

And what are we going to do about it?

We’ve all seen the stories in print or watched the video clips:

  • In a story about a hospital’s response to a disaster, the hospital administrator and/or a physician describe the actions of the staff, while behind them one can see nurses rushing about.
  • In a story about patient survival after a harrowing event, it’s the physician alone who is interviewed about the patient’s care and recovery.

Nurses—and nursing’s role—are made invisible; our contributions are devalued, relegated to little more than a backdrop for most stories about health care or news involving delivery of services. And yet we all know that nurses were intimately involved in the event and outcomes. In ignoring nurses’ experiences and perspectives, health care coverage perpetuates nursing’s invisibility and ignores nursing’s central role in health care.

A replication study reports little progress after 20 years.

In the October issue, Diana Mason and colleagues present their report of a study they conducted as an adjunct to their recent replication of the 1997 Woodhull Study on Nursing and the Media. In the replication study,

” . . . nurses were identified as sources in only 2% of health news stories in the same print publications investigated in the earlier study, showing no […]

2018-10-08T10:41:16-04:00October 8th, 2018|Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Being a Nurse, or When Did You ‘Grok’ Nursing?

How does one “become” a nurse, as opposed to learning nursing skills? What is “being” a nurse as opposed to “doing” nursing?

On our Facebook page last week, we posted this query: “Professional identity is more than what you do—it’s a part of who you are. What does being a nurse mean to you?” One of the responses we received was, “Caring providers that own it, do right, work together and solve problems with innovative methods to improve care methods and optimize outcomes.

The respondent’s use of “own it” resonated with me: from the thesaurus, to own something means “to possess, preserve, maintain, hold, profess, declare, accept, have possession of…” To me, it hints at holding onto something valuable, being mindful of it and not losing sight of it.

This original post came about because I had recently attended a meeting at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, where a group of about 50 invitees were asked to brainstorm how nursing students develop a professional identity—How does one “become” a nurse, as opposed to learning nursing skills? What is “being” a nurse as opposed to “doing” nursing? Most of us say, when asked what we do, “I’m a nurse,” not “I do nursing.” And some of […]

2018-10-05T10:42:29-04:00October 5th, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, 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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