As ACA Under Threat, Dawning Awareness of a Law’s Many Provisions

by matsuyuki/via Flickr

Nurses reflect the American population’s variety, and this means that many nurses support the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and many would like it repealed, whatever the replacement might be.

Like many Americans, nurses may have a broad ideological or analytical perspective on the pros and cons of the ACA or other health policy issues. Or they may choose for or against complex legislation on the basis of a single issue—like abortion funding, or insurance access for a husband or daughter with a preexisting condition, or whether they believe staffing issues can be blamed on their hospital administration or an ACA provision.

But it’s been my experience as an editor at AJN and a citizen that many people don’t really know that the ACA has multiple provisions that address quality and access issues at every level of health care.

The futures of these provisions are all in question as the Trump administration and a Republican-led Congress prepare to hack away at the ACA without a clear replacement plan.

With a kind of pre-obituary fervor, the media is beginning to pay attention to the changes the ACA brought about now that many may soon disappear—so, for seemingly the first time, are many Democratic politicians, who it’s now clear did very little to sell the ACA to their constituents. […]

2017-01-20T09:12:42-05:00January 20th, 2017|health care policy, Nursing|5 Comments
Read More

Reluctant Heroes: When Men in Nursing Cry

Reluctant Hero / graphite, charcoal, and pastel on paper / by Julianna Paradisi 2017

I first learned the effect a man’s tears have on my emotions from the parents of my young patients when I was a pediatric intensive care nurse.

I am not unaffected by the tears of a woman, but in the PICU the tears of the mothers differed in nature from the tears of the fathers.

A mother with a hospitalized child will cry, and when overwhelmed, she will break down. But in the PICU, more often than not, she took a tissue from the box I handed her, wiped her eyes, breathed deeply, and then put on a brave face to protect her child from knowing her fear and concern over his welfare.

When the father cried, it was an admission of helplessness. His problem-solving toolbox was empty. The tears represented feelings of personal failure, powerlessness to protect his child and family from disease or trauma. His criteria for being a father, or a man, was eroded.

These displays of total soul-brokenness undid me every time. […]

2017-01-18T10:32:08-05:00January 17th, 2017|career, men in nursing, Nursing|6 Comments
Read More

Health Care Terms and Words To Retire and Replace?

This week, two bloggers posted lists of words or terms they felt should no longer be used when referring to health professionals or patients.

2017-01-11T12:45:05-05:00January 10th, 2017|healthcare social media, Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
Read More

Stop the Eye Rolling: Welcoming Future Nurses to the Profession

Rosemary Taylor

One perennial topic that comes up among nurses on social media is the extent to which many nurses have been treated unkindly by colleagues at some points in their careers. New nurses and nursing students are, for obvious reasons, particularly vulnerable to rudeness and other forms of unprofessional conduct. The Viewpoint in the January issue of AJN, “Stop the Eye Rolling: Supporting Nursing Students in Learning,” by Rosemary Taylor, PhD, RN, CNL, assistant professor of nursing at the University of New Hampshire, makes the case that nursing students often face an “unwelcoming introduction” to the profession when they venture out of the classroom for clinical instruction.

Writes Clark:

Nursing students are often targets of the kinds of incivility that can be classified as vertical violence. The majority of these incivilities are “low risk,” as described in Cynthia Clark’s “continuum of incivility,” with eye rolling (“low risk”) just below sarcasm on one end of the spectrum and threatening behaviors and physical assault (“high risk”) on the other.

Citing her own students’ sometimes disheartening experiences, as well as Cynthia Clark’s book Creating and Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education, Taylor makes a convincing argument that “eye rolling, a seemingly trivial gesture, is in fact a particularly hurtful form of nonverbal aggression.”

Yet, says Taylor, these and other forms […]

2017-01-05T08:25:57-05:00January 5th, 2017|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing students|7 Comments
Read More

AJN in January: Triglycerides, HPV–Related Oral Cancers, Year in Review, More

The January issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles we’d like to bring to your attention.

CE Feature: “Triglycerides: Do They Matter?”

In light of the increasing incidences of obesity, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes, lowering triglyceride levels has been getting renewed interest. In addition to the focus on lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention, clinicians need to be aware of the role of triglycerides—their contribution to CVD, and the causes and treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. In this article, the authors discuss the importance of lowering triglyceride levels and review the lifestyle changes and pharmacologic treatments that can help achieve this goal.

CE Feature: “Human Papillomavirus-Related Oral Cancers: The Nurse’s Role in Mitigating Stigma and Dispelling Myths”

The prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV)–related oral cancers has been rising, with the cancers occurring in adults at a younger age than HPV-negative oral cancers typically do and in men more often than women. Because HPV is sexually transmitted, diagnosis with an HPV-related oral cancer may prompt feelings of shame and guilt. It’s essential for nurses to educate patients on HPV transmission and HPV-related oral cancer, thus helping to mitigate the stigma and dispel myths, and to promote vaccination in at-risk populations, including children and young adults.

In the News: […]

2016-12-30T10:46:54-05:00December 30th, 2016|Nursing|0 Comments
Read More

Comment ground rules

1. Please be respectful.
2. We moderate all comments.

Content disclaimer

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.
Go to Top