June Issue: Hearing-Impairment and Hospitalization, Gaucher Disease, an Early Mobility Protocol, Giving and Getting Report, More

“The problem is the insidious way personal smartphones divert and fracture our attention. If you don’t take work home with you, why is it okay to bring home to work?” —Kathleen Bartholomew, MN, RN, author of this month’s Viewpoint

The June issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: Original Research: Understanding the Hospital Experience of Older Adults with Hearing Impairment

Older hospitalized adults with hearing impairment may be labeled confused, experience heightened fear and anxiety, or misunderstand the plan of care. This qualitative study assessed the hospital experience of hearing-impaired patients in order to formulate suggestions for improving nursing care.

CE: Understanding the Nurse’s Role in Managing Gaucher Disease

The author discusses the epidemiology and pathophysiology of Gaucher disease—a lysosomal storage disorder that can affect the spleen, liver, bones, bone marrow, and central nervous system—as well as recent advances in screening, diagnosis, and management.

Cultivating Quality: The Benefits of Implementing an Early Mobility Protocol in Postoperative Neurosurgical Spine Patients

The authors present their quality improvement initiative to establish an NP-led early mobility protocol aimed at reducing uncomplicated postsurgical spine patients’ length of hospital stay and eliminating […]

2018-05-25T08:48:44-04:00May 25th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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What the Patient Knew: Communication and Patient Safety

Anticipating emergencies.

by rosmary/via Flickr

At the start of every shift after receiving report, I take a moment to consider what emergencies I might anticipate for my particular patient in our PICU. Monitor for excessive bleeding in a liver failure patient. Monitor for an altered neurological status in a patient with a head bleed. I try to envision how I would start CPR in the room if required. I try to be thorough in checking that all my emergency equipment is present and working. I try to keep patient safety at the forefront of my mind and priorities.

I came to work one day and received report about my 9-year-old patient who was post-operative day one from a planned craniofacial surgery. He would remain nasally intubated with eyes sutured shut for a few days until the swelling had reduced, and then would return to the OR to be extubated and to have the eye sutures removed. I’d had patients like him before and felt he would be very easy to keep safe, especially given that per handoff report, he was comfortably sedated and not overly agitated when he did briefly waken with nursing care.

A patient’s question.

As I got to know him through the first couple hours of my shift, I found that he was indeed comfortably sedated though easily […]

2018-05-24T10:08:09-04:00May 24th, 2018|Nursing, patient safety, Patients|0 Comments
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Sleepless Nurses

“If I couldn’t even figure out what goes into my lunch box, how could I possibly have multitasked . . . on a busy unit?”

Awake for 40 hours.

Photo by Jeff Greenberg. The ImageWorks.

I recently had the disorienting experience of being awake for 40 hours. This had to do with a family member’s interminable emergency department visit, a 3 a.m. car breakdown, and a post-ED MRI and medical visit.

I’ve never been up for 40 hours in my life. I didn’t pull “all-nighters” in school before exams, and never worked longer than a double eight–hour shift. Partying the night away wasn’t in my DNA. So this experience was strange and new, and something I pondered over for days afterward.

An ‘otherworldly’ state.

By the time I’d been up for 24 hours straight, I was operating at a level about two beats behind everyone around me. Physically, I felt a little off-balance, as though I might fall if I didn’t step carefully. My brain seemed mired in muck, and I found myself trying to recall what I knew about depleting bodily stores of ATP. Preparing to return to work around hour 26, I stared into my lunch box. I couldn’t remember what food I was supposed to […]

2018-05-21T08:29:35-04:00May 21st, 2018|Nursing|4 Comments
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Nurses, Dying, and Who Gets to Decide

by Ramon Peco/via Flickr

On Wednesday, a California court declared the state’s right-to-die law unconstitutional. The End of Life Act (AB-15) was passed in 2016 in a special session called by Governor Gerry Brown, and permitted physicians to prescribe medications to a patient “for the sole purpose of ending his or her life.” California was one of just a handful of states that had such legislation. Reports note that an appeal is likely.

And also last week, Australian scientist and right-to-die advocate David Goodall, who was 104 years old, flew to Basel, Switzerland, to take advantage of its right-to-die law and end his life. According to the New York Times, Goodall, whose health had been deteriorating since a fall, said, “One wants to be free to choose his death when death is at the appropriate time.” Mr. Goodall lamented that his home country didn’t allow him to die there.

An ongoing debate.

These events last week underscore the struggle over whether people have a right to choose to end their lives and who should decide that. It’s also why we are very pleased to highlight this important topic in the current issue of AJN.

In “Assisted Suicide/Aid in Dying: What Is the Nurse’s Role?”, ethicist Ann Hamric and colleagues report on a […]

2018-05-18T14:04:40-04:00May 18th, 2018|Nursing|1 Comment
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What Would You Do If You Weren’t a Nurse?

“The further away I get from direct patient contact, the less I enjoy being a nurse.”

Last week was Nurses Week, and on its Facebook page, the American Journal of Nursing posted the question, “What would you do if you weren’t a nurse?”

It was not surprising to me that many nurses commented something to the effect of, “I don’t know. I like being a nurse.” Others, though, posted a variety of career choices, often unrelated to nursing, many of them in creative fields.

I did not grow up wanting to be a nurse.

The List Inkjet, collage, and water media on paper, by Julianna Paradisi 2018

When I was three years old, I wanted to be a horse. Once I realized it was impossible, I settled on becoming a ballerina. However, the small community where I grew up did not have a dance studio or classes, so this aspiration also fell to the wayside.

In junior high school, I decided I would become a writer. I already knew I was an artist; I’d known that before I wanted to be a horse. I’ve always drawn, and still do, nearly daily. I began writing and keeping journals in elementary school.

A librarian’s intuition.

When I was 15, our school […]

2018-05-16T10:44:17-04:00May 16th, 2018|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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