International Women’s Day: Remembering Lives Shadowed by Violence

DSC_0028 Photo by Karen Roush

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP-C, AJN clinical managing editor

She lived in a trailer with her boyfriend and her three children, all under the age of five. He beat her up regularly.

Every few weeks she came in to see me at the health center where I worked as an NP in urgent care. Sometimes she would come in with bruises, but most of the time it was for the less obvious sequelae of violence—unexplained chest pain, palpitations, anxiety attacks, back pain, relentless headaches. There was a policy in urgent care that you couldn’t ask for a particular provider. So she would call to speak to me directly and when the operator put her through she’d know I was on and would come in.

I’m not sure why she came to trust me over the other providers. Maybe she could sense that I understood and didn’t judge her, though I had never told her about my own history of domestic violence. But it was probably because I listened. There was not much else I could do. She had gone to a counselor when I encouraged her to, but that didn’t last long—it was hard for her to find transportation for the 30-minute trip into town. […]

2016-11-21T13:08:10-05:00March 8th, 2013|nursing perspective|3 Comments
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A Chinese Dialysis Nurse’s Moving Story About Chronic Illness

Skip Navigation Links“I’m preparing for the university entrance exam,” he often told me. He was upbeat and grateful, despite the disease. I admired him for his strength and spirit and felt terrible that he’d been diagnosed so young.

CaptureThe March Reflections, “Skipped Two Times,” submitted to AJN by a dialysis nurse from China, is about a potentially avoidable crisis in the health of a young man with renal failure secondary to lupus. It’s about chronic illness, patient self-management, and a nurse’s remorse.

To my knowledge this is the first Reflections essay by a Chinese nurse that we’ve published. We’ve already heard from more than one reader who was moved by the story. It’s free, so give it a look.—JM, senior editor

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2016-11-21T13:08:11-05:00March 7th, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments
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‘To Profess’ – A Poem on the Passing of Donna Diers, PhD, RN, FAAN

Diers_DonnaDonna Diers, 1938–2013

I’ve seen several notices about the February 23rd death of this true “living legend” of nursing. The terms used to describe her or her contributions to nursing include “champion of nursing research,” “advocate,” “captivating storyteller,” “caring mentor,” and “inspirational figurehead.” I’d add unpretentious, wise, warm, and witty. I can’t say I was a friend—our dealings were because she was on AJN’s editorial board and its journal oversight committee. But I felt her warmth and support and appreciated her encouragement and suggestions, always given in a straight-talking, to-the-point fashion. I’ve saved one particularly encouraging e-mail she sent—she always had the right words.

There will undoubtedly be many tributes to Donna—and deservedly so. We will have one in our April issue, which is already at the printer. And here’s a tribute from the Yale School of Nursing, where she was the former dean and still teaching until just before her death; it lists her many accomplishments.

The following poem by Jeanne LeVasseur, a nursing professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, will appear in our May issue, but we were so taken with it that we want to share it with you now.—Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief


To Profess
By Jeanne LeVasseur, PhD, MFA, APRN, RN

—In memoriam, Donna Diers

On the day she died, most of us didn’t yet know,
like Icarus falling from his century
the wax wings disappearing in the green water,
just Daedalus weeping, it took time for that great circle to ripple out.
And […]

2016-11-21T13:08:11-05:00March 4th, 2013|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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AJN’s March Issue: CVD Prevention in Women, Hand Hygiene, Sexuality in Nursing Homes, More

AJN0313.Cover.Online.inddAJN’s March issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Recent surveys show that women continue to underestimate their true risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This prompted the American Heart Association (AHA) to update its guidelines for preventing CVD in women. To make sure you’re up to date on the latest information, read “Update on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women.”

This article is open access and can earn you 2.3 continuing education (CE) credits. (The cover image to the right, a lithograph from 1830, is called A Map of the Open Country of a Woman’s Heart. For more about it, read this month’s “On the Cover.”)

Although hand hygiene is considered to be the most effective way of preventing health care–associated infections, not all health care workers adhere to the guidelines. The month’s original research article presents findings from an interventional study that showed how the introduction of gel sanitizer and informational posters improved hand hygiene at two outpatient clinics. This article is open access and can earn you 2.1 CE credits. A podcast with the author is available on our Web site, and we also feature a 1932 article on hand hygiene in our department, From the AJN Archives.

Although nurses may think of sexuality as more likely to preoccupy the young, our Sexually Speaking article, “Sexuality in Nursing Care Facilities,” points out that nursing home residents have the […]

2016-11-21T13:08:12-05:00March 1st, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Well On His Way: A Nursing Professor’s Humbling Experience

Holding On / D'Arcy Norman, via Flickr Holding On / D’Arcy Norman, via Flickr

By Martina Harris, EdD, RN, a UC Foundation assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing

It was 6 am and I was on my way to make patient assignments for my first semester nursing students. Inside the long term-care facility, the hallways were quiet, the majority of patients still in bed. I made my way to the second floor to begin identifying and assigning patients for my fundamental nursing students. Standing at the nurse’s station, my focus was on finding patients who would provide students varied opportunities to reinforce the basic skills they’d been learning at campus lab.

The charge nurse approached me and asked if I would be willing to assign a student to Mr. Hugh, an 84-year-old who was proving to be very “complicated.” Assuming that “complicated” meant that his care required lots of psychomotor tasks, I agreed to her request. She then explained that this patient had been using his call light frequently, but that each time the staff responded, he only wanted someone to sit and visit with him. Though this didn’t seem an ideal opportunity for a student to practice basic nursing skills, I felt the gracious thing to do was to take the assignment.

In the hallway, my group of fundamental nursing students huddled together, dressed in their white uniforms and nervously awaiting the start of their first clinical […]

2018-03-27T15:40:49-04:00February 26th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing students, students|10 Comments
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