A Weekend With Florence In London

Editor’s note: The two entries below, written on Saturday and Sunday in London, are the latest in a series of posts by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Senior Adviser for Nursing, Susan Hassmiller, who’s spending her summer vacation retracing the footsteps of Florence Nightingale and reflecting on the implications of Nightingale’s work for nurses today.

Saturday: Westminster Abbey (London)

I arrived in London for my vacation today. They tell me it is uncharacteristically hot (nearly 90 degrees), so that gave me full license to have ice cream . . . not once, but twice! And although the “official” Florence Nightingale tour hasn’t started, I didn’t waste time getting a head start on my quest to better understand the contributions of Ms. Nightingale. […]

2017-04-29T17:29:33-04:00July 12th, 2010|nursing history, nursing research|5 Comments
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International Recruitment of Nurses: A Look at the Industry and Voluntary Codes of Ethics

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

A significant number of foreign-educated nurses (FENs) come to the United States each year to work; although the exact number is unknown, consider that in 2009 alone, more than 14,000 FENs passed the NCLEX exam for licensure to practice here. Many come because they’ve been actively recruited by firms acting as agents for hospitals and nursing homes; others come on their own. Some are recruited from developing countries that, because of severe internal nursing shortages, can ill afford to send qualified nurses abroad. And some FENs learn that what they expected—or were led to expect—doesn’t match what they actually find when they arrive.

In the June issue of AJN, you’ll find a comprehensive study examining the international nurse recruitment business, an industry that’s gone through rapid growth in the last decade. Supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Patricia M. Pittman and colleagues conducted interviews with industry executives and focus groups with FENs. […]

2016-11-21T13:17:21-05:00June 7th, 2010|nursing perspective, nursing research, students|4 Comments
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Nursing Is Hazardous to Our Health

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

We all know that our nursing jobs expose us to various hazards—back and joint problems, needlesticks and other means of exposure to infectious diseases, traumatic injuries from encounters with violent patients or their family members, just to name some common ones. And as if that’s not enough, the psychological toll taken can result in burnout and even PTSD, which wreak havoc on retention. Heart disease and depression should probably also be on the list.

You may have seen news reports about a study with Danish nurses, published in the May issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. The researchers found that nurses younger than 51 years at baseline who perceived their workplaces as highly stressful were significantly more likely to have ischemic heart disease during the 15-year follow-up. Now, as the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reports, a Finnish study has found that nurses and physicians who work in overcrowded acute care units have “twice the risk of sickness absence due to depressive disorders” compared with colleagues working in less crowded areas. And Health Policy reports on a study revealing that, among Canadian nurses, “Depression is a significant determinant of absenteeism for both RNs and LPNs.”

Is anyone surprised? Not nurses, for sure, and probably no one who’s worked at or been a patient in a hospital recently. With few exceptions, hospitals are generally terrible places to work. Yes, the

2016-11-21T13:17:24-05:00June 4th, 2010|nursing perspective, nursing research|6 Comments
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Rapid Response Teams Seen Through the Nurse’s Eyes: What A New Study Reveals

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

How do nurses who activate a call by their facility’s rapid response team feel about the experience? And why does it matter? These questions lie at the heart of a qualitative study by nurse researcher Susan E. Shapiro and colleagues, who report on their findings in this month’s CE feature (for optimum reading, open the PDF version). For the study, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Shapiro and colleagues interviewed 56 staff nurses from 18 hospitals in 13 states; all of the nurses had participated in at least one rapid response team activation. Based on the data, the researchers identified three categories, posed as questions, that best described the nurses’ experiences:

  • Why was the team activated?
  • What did the team bring to the bedside?
  • How did the activating nurses feel about the experience?

Nurses tended to activate the rapid response team when a patient had signs and symptoms “that were either unexplained or significantly different from baseline,” when the nurse had a “gut feeling” that something was amiss, or when the nurse felt a patient needed urgent attention and couldn’t get the treating physician to respond. Overall, the activating nurses appreciated the added expertise and resources that rapid response team members brought to the bedside. As one nurse said, “You don’t have to figure it out; there’s going to be other minds there to work through it.” […]

2010-06-03T10:13:37-04:00June 3rd, 2010|nursing perspective, nursing research|2 Comments
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