The Speed of Patience: Notes On Navigating Hospital Hallways

The Speed of Nurses

'She Observes,' ink on paper, 2005 by Julianna Paradisi ‘She Observes,’ ink on paper, 2005 by Julianna Paradisi

A while ago, my stepfather had surgery at the hospital where I work. After spending a long day in the waiting room, my husband and I left the post-surgery unit. As we walked down the narrow hallway towards the main lobby, a young man, his girlfriend trailing behind by the hand, came around a corner from the opposite direction too quickly. They headed towards the elevator. We narrowly avoided collision. Had either my husband or I been disabled, someone might have been injured.

As he pulled the young woman into the elevator, he sniped at us sarcastically, “I’m not rude!” Rude or not, he was obviously unfamiliar with the traffic flow of hospital hallways.

Hospital hallways accommodate two types of travelers: staff and patients/visitors. These groups travel at speeds established by urgency and limited by ability.

For nurses, getting to a patient’s room fast may mean saving a life, or simply providing an emesis basin to preserve a patient’s dignity. Among nurses, a lack of urgency (the inability to act fast) is viewed as a character flaw.

Although I am […]

2016-11-21T13:00:53-05:00October 27th, 2016|Nursing|0 Comments
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Information for Nurses on Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED)

The New York Times recently published an article by Paula Span called “The VSED Exit: A Way to Speed Up Dying, Without Asking Permission.” VSED stands for voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, an end-of-life option that is, on the surface, as simple as its name suggests. Span, who recently attended the first conference devoted to VSED, gives an overview of one mother’s choice to end her life using this method. She also does an excellent job enumerating the ethical, practical, and legal implications of choosing to stop eating and drinking.

screen-shot-2014-11-05-at-4-39-13-pmWhich types of patients is such a choice appropriate for? How much suffering does it involve? Are there legal pitfalls of involvement in the VSED process by nurses and physicians? We can expect that all of these questions and more will be receiving growing attention in the coming years.

Late in the article, Span quotes Judith Schwarz, PhD, RN, now clinical coordinator of End of Life Choices New York. In 2009, AJN published a CE article, “Stopping Eating and Drinking,” by Schwarz. This substantive article centers around a detailed case study. “Gertrude,” we learn, has lived a very full life. All the things that give her pleasure and a modicum of freedom are gradually being removed […]

2016-11-21T13:00:53-05:00October 24th, 2016|Ethics, Nursing, patient experience|0 Comments
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‘She’s Alive Because Of You’: A Nurse’s Advocacy Pays Off

Katie L. George, DNP, RN, AG-ACNP, CCRN. Photo courtesy of Katie L. George. Katie L. George, DNP, RN, AG-ACNP, CCRN

While attending this year’s American Association of Critical-Care Nurses National Teaching Institute meeting, AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy heard a story that she felt all nurses needed to hear as a reminder of the impact a nurse’s advocacy can have on a patient.

Critical care nurse Katie George, just a few years into her career when the events in the story took place, was caring for Ms. A., a young woman whose spinal cord had been nearly severed in a car accident.

Faced with a prognosis suggesting that Ms. A.’s quality of life would be poor and that she would have to remain on a ventilator, Ms. A.’s family made what they felt was the humane decision to have her removed from life support. But Ms. A.’s fiancé—and her nurse Katie George—were convinced that Ms. A., who seemed to be able to communicate by blinking in response to questions, should at least be given the chance to make the decision for herself.

Ms. A. was suffering from locked-in syndrome, a condition in which the patient is conscious and eye movement […]

2016-11-21T13:00:53-05:00October 20th, 2016|Nursing, nursing perspective, patient experience|1 Comment
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The Primary Care Confessions of Traumatized Patients

drawing of patient in waiting room Illustration by Hana Cisarova. All rights reserved.

In this month’s Reflections essay, “The Traumatized Patient,” family nurse practitioner Margaret Adams delves with sympathy into what she calls the “primary care confessions” of a challenging subset of patients. Writes Adams:

I’ve come to recognize patients like you—sometimes by your disturbingly long and detailed allergy lists, but more often by the frequency with which you come in for the same constellation of symptoms: fatigue, headaches, dizziness, general malaise. Something happened to you— maybe years ago, maybe recently—and it left its mark on you in irredeemable ways, . . .

While symptoms often do have underlying physiological causes, Adams is likewise attuned to the emotional subtext behind certain seemingly fruitless patient encounters. And with many specific examples, she makes the case here that the life of trauma plays itself out over time in the body and mind. […]

2016-11-21T13:00:53-05:00October 18th, 2016|Nursing, nursing stories, patient engagement, Patients|0 Comments
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AJN News: Veteran Suicide, Older Drivers, Job Turnover Among New RNs, More

AJN’s monthly news section covers timely and important research and policy stories that are relevant to the nursing world. Here are some of the stories you’ll find in our current issue (news articles in AJN are free access):

President Obama signs the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act on Feb. 12, 2015. Photo © Associated Press.

About 20 Veterans Died Daily from Suicide Between 2001 and 2014

A new […]

2016-11-21T13:00:53-05:00October 14th, 2016|Nursing|0 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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