But someone is paying for the production of the content on the Internet—if it’s not a reputable organization or journal, who is it? Is it unbiased? Is it evidence-based, and who vetted the evidence and the authors? Let the readers—and their patients—be wary of what they read online and ask themselves just who paid for it, and why.
By Diana J. Mason, editor-in-chief emeritus
We at AJN know that there are myriad ways that nurses learn about best practices in care. While we hope you read AJN every month, we know that many nurses would like the opportunity to hear from and talk firsthand with experts in clinical care. On October 4, 5, and 6, you’ll have that opportunity in Chicago at AJN’s first conference: Advancing Excellence in Clinical Practice. This will not be the typical conference where you are lectured to endlessly. The sessions are designed for lots of interaction with participants, in the belief that building sound best practices requires critical analysis of the evidence, local adaptation of idealized approaches to care, and refining what works according to specific circumstances. […]
By Jim Stubenrauch, senior editor
This month, AJN is joining in the nationwide effort to raise awareness and promote education about ovarian cancer. The September issue contains an original research paper on “Women’s Awareness of Ovarian Cancer Risks and Symptoms” by Suzy Lockwood-Rayermann, PhD, MSN, RN, and colleagues. The authors analyzed data collected from an online survey completed by more than 1,200 women ages 40 and older and found that awareness of ovarian cancer symptoms and risk factors is low. This suggests that nurses have an excellent opportunity to educate patients and help them get diagnosed at earlier stages of the disease when it’s more treatable.
You can also hear an interview I conducted with Dr. Lockwood-Rayermann on our podcasts page.
I’ll summarize the study below, but first, you might want to know that cancer survivor, actress, and women’s health activist Fran Drescher wrote on a related topic in this month’s Viewpoint, “Women, Take Control of Your Bodies!” Drescher discusses her battle with uterine cancer and the crucial support her sister Nadine, a nurse, provided on her “medical oddysey.” After writing a book about her experience, Cancer Schmancer, Drescher started the Cancer Schmancer Movement, an organization dedicated to promoting education, legislation, and social reform aimed at early detection of cancer. […]
In addition to the preconference workshops, keynote presentation, concurrent sessions, and panels that are the norm for large, national meetings, the conference will also include poster sessions. I think many nurses not involved in research or from academia ignore posters and think of them as “not-quite-good-enough-to-be-real-sessions” topics. That’s far from the truth in most instances, especially in established conferences that have “name” presenters filling program slots. We see poster sessions as a way to highlight new work, work that may not have broad appeal but is important, or that extends topics covered in a session.
As suggested by a post here last week, AJN has carried editorials, opinion pieces, and news reports about the Gulf War, Desert Storm, and the Iraq War, and about nurses and torture. We’ve also documented issues around women’s rights, AIDS in Africa, hunger, and poverty. (In November 2007, as part of a group of 200 journals organized by the Council of Science Editors, we focused an entire issue on poverty.) But we get pushback, in the form of letters—some readers feel that we should focus on nursing in the United States only.