Final Connection: An ICU Nurse Revises Her Feelings About Cell Phones

Illustration by Denny Bond. All rights reserved. Illustration by Denny Bond. All rights reserved.

Many of us have a love-hate relationship to smartphones, and each person (and generation) draws the line in the sand between invasiveness and usefulness in a different place. Cynthia Stock, the critical care nurse who wrote the Reflections essay in the November issue of AJN, “Final Connection,” starts her brief and moving story with honesty about such matters:

On Monday, if you had asked me how I feel about cell phones, I would have come up with this: I hate to listen to the drone of conversation coming from the person next to me on the treadmill at the gym. I don’t care about trouble with the HOA. I don’t care about a son who can’t decide on a career as a director or an actor. I work out to smooth the kinks in my soul from a job that requires me to navigate a relationship with life and death.

Today, ask me how I feel about cell phones. . . .

A good essay or story often centers around a reversal of some sort. What the protagonist believed may not be so true after all, or may be more complicated than first thought. As you can probably guess, in the […]

2016-11-21T13:01:49-05:00November 2nd, 2015|narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients|1 Comment
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AJN in November: New Cancer Survivorship Series, Holistic Nursing, Safe Opioid Use, More

AJN1115.Cover.2nd.inddOn this month’s cover, a nurse provides care to a patient at Clearview Cancer Institute in Huntsville, Alabama. The photo was chosen as the third-place winner of AJN’s 2015 Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work contest. Photographer Kim Swift shot the photo while shadowing her sister, a nurse, for a day. Swift sought to capture what she calls “the trust factor” between patients and nurses. She found a prime example of that relationship when she noticed the way one patient looked at her nurse as he explained an aspect of her cancer treatment.

To read the first in a series of AJN articles on cancer survivorship from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, see “Adverse Late and Long-Term Treatment Effects in Adult Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Survivors.” This article—the first of several on cancer survivorship—summarizes the identification, evaluation, and management of potential treatment-related effects in adult survivors of hematopoietic stem cell transplants, with special focus on cardiovascular disease risk factors.

Some other articles of note in the November issue:

CE Feature: “Imagery for Self-Healing and Integrative Nursing Practice.” Research suggests that that the use of imagery can help reduce patients’ pain and anxiety and improve their quality of life and outlook on their illness. The second article in a five-part series on holistic nursing describes how imagery can be used to encourage patients’ healing process and presents […]

2016-11-21T13:01:49-05:00October 30th, 2015|Nursing|1 Comment
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Practical Steps for Nurses to Reduce Prescription Opioid Diversion

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

“Opioids diverted from friends and family members who have legitimate prescriptions are a major source of abused prescription opioids.”

More than 800 lbs. of drugs have been collected in Lycoming County, PA, since drug collection boxes were placed in law enforcement agencies over a year ago, allowing residents to safely dispose of unwanted drugs. Here the drugs are separated from their containers before incineration. Photo courtesy of Karen Vibert-Kennedy / Williamsport Sun-Gazette. More than 800 lbs. of drugs have been collected in Lycoming County, PA, since collection boxes were placed in law enforcement agencies over a year ago, allowing residents to safely dispose of unwanted drugs. Here the drugs are separated from their containers before incineration. Photo courtesy of Karen Vibert-Kennedy / Williamsport Sun-Gazette.

Amid recent reports from the CDC drawing attention to a prescription painkiller and heroin overdose epidemic, last week President Obama announced an initiative to address both prescription drug and heroin abuse in the United States. In addition to a […]

2016-11-21T13:01:50-05:00October 28th, 2015|Nursing, pain management, Patients|0 Comments
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Medical Marijuana: A Nurse’s Primer

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, is an oncology nurse navigator and writes a monthly post for this blog.

Illustration by J Paradisi. Illustration by J Paradisi.

Since I wrote “Marijuana Legalization and Potential Workplace Pitfalls for Nurses Who Partake” in July 2014, a few things have changed. For one, Measure 91 passed in Oregon, making it the third state to legalize recreational marijuana. Medical marijuana, however, has been legal since 1998 in Oregon, currently one of 23 states nationwide.

Also, when I wrote the earlier post, I was an infusion nurse—now, as an oncology nurse navigator, I’m asked about medical marijuana often, and I need to know the answers, as do all nurses practicing in states with legalized medical marijuana. Nurses working in oncology, emergency departments, pain management, infusion clinics, and pediatrics have high exposure to patients with medical marijuana cards.

By ‘knowledge,’ I don’t mean knowing everything, but knowing where to find what you need to know. In Oregon, for example, information about medical marijuana is found at the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP). The Web site includes qualifying diagnoses, a downloadable handbook, an application packet with instructions, and a list of approved dispensaries. While retail issues surrounding recreational marijuana are still being sorted out, medical dispensaries in Oregon sell recreational marijuana to clients aged 21 and older.

Patients using medical marijuana are as […]

2016-11-21T13:01:50-05:00October 27th, 2015|nursing perspective, Patients|0 Comments
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Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation: Essentials for Nurses

By Amanda Anderson, a critical care nurse and graduate student in New York City currently doing a graduate placement at AJN.

A postablation case was a rarity for me, even as an experienced ICU nurse. While floating to the cardiac ICU one day, I received a patient from the cath lab who had just undergone the procedure for recurrent atrial fibrillation.

My colleagues, experienced in electrophysiology care, gave me a heads up—“Just watch her rhythm. That’s the most important thing.” But no one could provide a standard protocol for me to follow in her care. While I had the usual critical care protocol for monitoring patients, and the orders given to me for this patient, before she arrived I did a little online searching to determine how to tailor my care for her needs.

The catheter ablation procedure involves electrical ablation of tissue around the circumference of the pulmonary veins, the most common site for atrial fibrillation triggers (A). Lesions are created through the use of an irrigated radiofrequency ablation catheter (B). Illustration by Anne Rains. The catheter ablation procedure involves electrical ablation of tissue around the circumference of […]

2016-11-21T13:01:50-05:00October 23rd, 2015|Nursing, nursing perspective|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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