Multistate Outbreak of Life-Threatening Pulmonary Disease Amid E-Cigarette Use

Health officials are investigating an outbreak of severe pulmonary disease this summer that appears to be linked to the use of e-cigarettes, or vaping. One person has died, and many others have been hospitalized with a variety of symptoms in the days and weeks after they reported vaping. As of late August, 215 possible cases of e-cigarette–associated pulmonary disease have been reported in 25 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Unknown Cause

On Friday, the agency released a Health Advisory that provides information about e-cigarette products, updated details about the outbreak, and recommendations for clinicians, public health officials, and the public.

Health officials noted that respiratory (cough, shortness of breath, chest pain), gastrointestinal (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), or nonspecific constitutional (fatigue, fever, or weight loss) symptoms have been occurring in otherwise healthy people, many in their teens or 20s, since June.

The exact cause of the outbreak is unknown, but reports point to a common factor: e-cigarette products were reportedly used by those affected. Many, but not all, patients reported that they’d used tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other cannabinoid products. The CDC, along with the Food and Drug Administration and local and state health departments, continues to investigate the cause of the outbreak.

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2019-09-06T10:38:59-04:00September 5th, 2019|Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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‘An Epidemic Transformed’: Where Are We With HIV Today?

“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” [the patient said] to the nurse as he watched the last few drops of his chemotherapy drug infuse into the port implanted in his chest… The nurse caring for him smiled while preparing to disconnect his IV tubing and flush the port….   What distinguished [this patient] from the nurse’s other patients was that he had been living with HIV for 32 years.”

At the very beginning of the HIV epidemic, a friend of mine worked on one of the first HIV units in New York City. The nursing staff followed Standard Precautions in their work with these patients, as we do today. They weren’t particularly concerned about risk to themselves, because it was already clear that this disease—as little as we knew about it then—was not easily transmitted to caregivers.

Remembering fear.

Yet many who worked in other parts of the hospital were not convinced of this. One of my friend’s stories always stayed with me: She relayed how dietary staff would take the elevator to the HIV unit, shove the meal cart out of the elevators into the elevator lobby, and quickly step back into the elevator and close the doors. Many times the nursing staff didn’t […]

2019-09-03T10:06:59-04:00September 3rd, 2019|infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Memories of Beginning Nursing School

I just finished a visit with a longtime friend. Of course, we reminisced about nursing school.

We met the first week of nursing school, over 40 years ago (OMG, when did that happen?), when we and some other classmates went to buy books. She took one look at the crowd and came up with an organized and efficient approach to getting what we needed in the overcrowded college book store. She would grab four biology texts, I’d get the lab manuals, Betty would pick up the history texts, Kathy would head for the English section—and then we’d all meet at the cashier. We were in and out in no time.

During nursing school, we had many late-night tea parties, grilling each other on med/surg questions. Pharmacology was the class we all feared—it was largely a matter of memorization; we shared mnemonics and tricks for remembering drugs and dosages, and the night before the final pulled an “all-nighter” with lots of coffee, pacing up and down and citing drug facts out loud.

And when some of us had doubts, after a hard semester, if nursing was really a good choice, we bucked each other up. And […]

2019-08-28T09:18:43-04:00August 28th, 2019|Nursing, nursing students|0 Comments
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September Issue: HIV Update, RN-Performed Bone Marrow Procedures, Debriefing Methods, More

“One day—and I remember distinctly that all I was doing was setting up [my mother’s] pills and preparing a few bites of food that I hoped she’d eat—a clear small voice inside me said, ‘You could do this for other people.’”—Linda Beall, author of the September Reflections column, “A Clear Small Voice”

The September issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new:

CE: HIV Update: An Epidemic Transformed

This article describes the current state of HIV treatment and prevention—including HIV risk reduction strategies such as PrEP and PEP—and highlights the common comorbidities often seen in older people living with HIV.

Cultivating Quality: Bone Marrow Aspiration and Biopsy Performed by RNs: A Review of Clinical Practice

The authors discuss the policies and practices of their program to train RNs to perform bone marrow procedures, its clinical and diagnostic outcomes, and the opportunity for nurses to work to their full scope of practice.

Teaching for Practice: Using Debriefing Methods in the Postclinical Conference

This article examines various debriefing methods and describes scenarios in which clinical instructors can use debriefing to turn daily events into teachable moments.

CE: Original Research: Are Milk and Molasses Enemas Safe for Hospitalized Adults? A Retrospective Electronic Health Record Review

The authors of this study evaluated the safety of milk and […]

2019-08-26T10:09:33-04:00August 26th, 2019|Nursing|0 Comments
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End-of-Life Conversations at the 11th Hour

Illustration by Gingermoth

A problem all too familiar to nurses.

How often have we nurses talked to friends, family members, or each other about the importance of making end-of-life decisions well before that decision becomes critical? We see so many deaths that come only after extended and often avoidable suffering, it’s all many of us can do to keep from grabbing a family member’s hand and whispering, “Let her go!” At home, our families are used to hearing us say again and again, “Do not let me die like that!”

If we work in a hospital, chances are that we are confronted over and over again with trying to help families make “11th hour” decisions that will affect how their loved ones die. How do we broach the subject, when time is so short?

Trust prepares the ground.

This month’s Reflections article, “Difficult Conversations,” isn’t a primer to walk us through these conversations, but it offers an example of how we can take our cue from events or changes in the patient’s condition to raise the topic of the inevitable. Author Vanessa Arroyo illustrates how, after we’ve developed a relationship with patient and family and earned their trust, it may become possible to ask the hard questions.

I […]

2019-08-19T09:59:07-04:00August 19th, 2019|Nursing, nursing stories|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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