Recommended Reading from the June Issue of AJN

A virtual RN provides support for a bedside RN on an inpatient unit. The June issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles in this issue that we’d like to highlight. Note that some may be free only to subscribers.

Initiating Virtual Nursing in General Inpatient Care

This article describes how one hospital developed a virtual RN role for experienced nurses to support bedside RNs and patients on designated general care inpatient units. The photo on our cover this month shows a bedside nurse presenting educational material to her patient, the importance of which a virtual RN looking on from the tablet will help explain and reinforce.

Original Research: Patient Perception of Fall Risk in the Acute Care Setting

This study reveals the disconnect between hospitalized patients’ fall risk assessment results and their own perceptions of their fall risk.

Original Research: The Impact of COVID-19 on Pain Care Among Older Adults

These study findings highlight the many challenges pain management nurses faced, as well as opportunities to improve the health system and enhance nursing practice.

Hospice Nurse Ethics and Institutional Policies Toward Medical Aid in Dying

This article reviews the ethics of requiring nurses to […]

2023-05-31T07:58:56-04:00May 30th, 2023|Nursing|0 Comments
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Just One Braid: The Power of Small Gestures to Restore Patient Dignity

Have you ever found yourself walking around your unit, overwhelmed by the prospect of managing your ever-growing workload? It sometimes feels like a never-ending cycle of assessments, medications, admissions, and discharges. I believe I’m not the only nurse who has experienced this frustration.

It is difficult to admit that, when COVID-19 entered our hospital doors, these thoughts consumed me. We witnessed the first casualties—not just of lives, but also of hope and intimacy—as we struggled to provide care and overcome our own anxieties amidst a scarcity of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Over time, we all learned a great deal about adapting to and managing a pandemic, and I have become more aware of my role within our flawed health care system. Focusing on my own fears and needs was valuable, of course, but these years opened my eyes to the injustices patients face. A significant proportion of the lives lost from COVID-19 due to ill-prepared infrastructure were from vulnerable communities. These realities transformed my perception of these injustices from distant awareness to concrete urgency.

Braiding a patient’s hair, restoring a sense of self.

The question of injustice brings to mind a recent encounter with a patient that deeply impacted me. This particular patient was young […]

2023-05-25T12:20:32-04:00May 25th, 2023|Nursing, nursing stories, patient experience|1 Comment
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Scales, Davis, Stewart: Black Public Health Nursing Pioneers

This is the last in a series of four blog posts (listed below) by nurse and attorney Edie Brous that introduce readers to some of the many notable Black nurses of the past. We encourage readers to delve more deeply into these lives and their intersection with key aspects of nursing history, women’s history, and the long struggle against racist barriers.  

“Honoring Notable Black Nurses of History“

“Mahoney, Thoms, Franklin: Black Nurses and Reformers to Remember“

“The Nursing Work of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman“

In this post, I will draw attention to three public health pioneers who overcame racial barriers to excel and create a path for those who followed.

Jessie Sleet Scales (1865-1956)

A public health pioneer, Jessie Sleet Scales graduated in 1895 from Provident Hospital and Training School in Chicago, America’s first Black-owned and -operated hospital. From there she went to Freedmen’s Hospital Training School at Howard University, Washington, D.C., for a special six-month course.

In her nursing career, Scales initially encountered rejection and racial barriers despite her training and a shortage of registered nurses. The Charity Organization Society in New York City hired her as a district nurse in 1900 to visit Black homes during the tuberculosis epidemic. She was given a two-month experimental trial, but did so well that she was kept on as a district nurse and visitor with the organization for nine years. Her supervisor was so impressed by Scales’ work that she submitted her report to the American Journal of […]

2023-05-23T09:31:03-04:00May 22nd, 2023|Nursing|0 Comments
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The Nursing Work of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman

Both Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman are known for their courageous struggles against slavery, their humanitarian work, and their support of suffrage. They are not known as much as they should be, however, for their role as nurses. (Editor’s note: this is the third in a series about important Black nurses of the past that we are publishing during Nurses Month 2023. Previous posts are here and here.)

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery in 1797 in New York State and grew up speaking Dutch. While still enslaved, she provided nursing care to the Dumont family. These nursing skills were used after she escaped slavery in 1826 with her infant daughter. In 1828, she became the first Black woman to sue a white man in a U.S. court and win, thereby recovering her son who had been sold into slavery in Alabama. In 1843, Baumfree’s religion convinced her that it was her mission to travel and testify. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth and throughout the rest of her long and complex life was to fight for the rights of African Americans and women.

During the Civil War, the U.S. War Department appointed Truth to Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, DC, the first hospital that […]

2023-05-17T11:28:49-04:00May 17th, 2023|Nursing|1 Comment
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Nurse Staffing Standards Act Is First Step in Solving Nursing Shortage

Nurses planning to leave the profession.

The nursing shortage continues, with no end in sight. In my current position as faculty in a university DNP program, I hear from students about caring for overwhelming numbers of patients and fearing for their patients’ safety and health. Nurses are suffering burnout because they are caring for so many patients they know nursing care is being missed. A recent survey found that job satisfaction has been dropping for nurses, while the percentage who say they may leave the profession is as high as 30% overall, with younger nurses most likely to say they may leave.

Nurse educators do our best, but we know that we are sending new graduates into the fire. Retired nurses worry about our family members (and ourselves) when we need nursing care.

Congress recently reintroduced the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act. This bill would mandate direct care registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratio requirements in hospitals. It has been introduced in several prior congressional sessions with little progress. We cannot let this window of opportunity pass.

Nurse staffing and patient outcomes.

Linda Aiken’s two decades of research demonstrate the effects of nurse staffing on patient outcomes. Despite legislative efforts in Massachusetts and […]

2023-06-13T06:57:19-04:00May 11th, 2023|health care policy, Nursing, Public health|5 Comments
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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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