Web Pickings: 2013 Predictions, Good Fat, Mammograms, Moderation, Nurse Wisdom, More

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Cartoon showing baby representing New Year 1905 chasing old man 1904 into history/ Wikipedia Cartoon showing baby representing New Year 1905 chasing old man 1904 into history/ Wikipedia

Ah, another new year starts (not 1905, despite the illustration) and received wisdom is overturned. Sort of. Consider the widely reported news that a JAMA study has found that being overweight doesn’t seem to increase your risk of dying, or, as the Kaiser Health News headline puts it, “A Little Extra Fat Could Be Protective.”

Many news summaries do point out that severely obese people had a higher risk of dying than did people of normal weight. What the study does and does not mean is being debated, with some pointing out that the study didn’t look at whether being overweight increased consumption of health care resources, number of prescribed medications, etc. We’re sure to hear more on this.

To continue with the theme of questioning long-term assumptions, NPR’s story “Breast Cancer: What We Learned in 2012” gives a nice summary of updated guidelines for who should and shouldn’t get mammograms, including pro and con arguments, the latest research, and so on.

Some pretty cynical journalism can be found in an opinion piece in the Palm Beach (Fl.) Post, which suggests that Hillary Clinton’s blood clot is a hoax.

A New York Times piece, in giving a tidy summary of important exercise-related research from the […]

2016-11-21T13:08:38-05:00January 2nd, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments
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AJN’s January Issue: Men in Nursing, Perioperative Medication Withholding in Patients with PD, Book of the Year Awards, More

AJN0113.Cover.Online

AJN’s January issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss, including two continuing education (CE) articles, which you can access for free.

Even though more men are starting to become nurses, they still make up less than 7% of all RNs.  In “Men in Nursing,” the authors discuss the challenges of recruiting and retaining men in the nursing profession. This article is open access and can earn you 2.1 CE credits.

 In this month’s original research article, the authors report on findings from a quantitative study exploring antiparkinson medication withholding times during hospitalization and symptom management. Part one of a two-part series, this article is open access and can earn you 2.5 CE credits. Look for part two in our next issue, which reports on findings from a qualitative study on the perioperative hospitaliza­tion experiences of patients with PD.

After sustaining a needlestick injury during a research study, nurse Lynn Petrik created a new safety device for a commonly used glucose sensor. “From Putty to Prototype” takes readers through the steps of her invention, from the prototype to the provisional patent.

 Looking for a good read? The votes are in, and the winners of AJN’s annual Book of the Year Awards are listed in this issue. A supplemental online only companion to the article gives the judges reviews for each book.  

 And finally, read “The Clinical Nurse […]

2016-11-21T13:08:39-05:00December 28th, 2012|nursing research|0 Comments
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A Mental Health Nurse’s Perspective on Newtown and Its Aftermath

Mary Magdalene Crying statue/Wikimedia Commons Mary Magdalene Crying statue/Wikimedia Commons

By Donna Sabella, MEd, MSN, PhD, RN, mental health nurse, AJN contributing editor, and coordinator of the monthly Mental Health Matters column

As we all know by now, last Friday, December 14, our nation was forced to bear witness to another act of unconscionable violence, as 20 children and six adults were gunned down inside their elementary school on a morning that began with the murder of the  gunman’s mother.

As the country ponders why and how this could have happened, we know that there are no easy answers. Those answers that we do arrive at will undoubtedly involve much thought and soul-searching. How could one human being, one lone gunman barely an adult himself, wreak such devastation on so many?

The pain and grief of Friday hangs heavy over Newtown, and only those who lost a child or loved one that day can begin to imagine the sorrow they are experiencing. But the sorrow and grief do not stop there. As President Obama stated on Sunday night in his remarks to the Newtown community, the nation collectively shares their sorrow, disbelief, and pain.

As we know, one need not be directly involved in an event to be affected by it. This horrible event forces us all to confront the notion that while we are the land of the brave and the home of the free, we share our land with evil, with senseless […]

2016-11-21T13:08:40-05:00December 19th, 2012|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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In Memory of the Victims in Newtown

shawnkennedyBy Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I could scarcely watch the news coverage of the horrific shooting that occurred in the small Connecticut town of Newton on Friday. It was just too awful. Children no older than seven, all shot, along with several teachers, by a young man who had already killed his mother and who later took his own life after causing unimaginable carnage. When the first reports emerged and newscasters were speculating on the number of people killed, I recalled then-mayor Rudy Giuliani’s reported response to a journalist who asked him how many were killed in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center: “More than we can bear.”

As nurses, we are no strangers to what happens when violence occurs. We see the results of it every day in our workplaces. Individuals, families, and communities are changed forever, and often we as caregivers are, too. What begins as an ordinary day becomes a tragic milestone: future events are remembered as “before” or “after” the event.

I’m tired of hearing “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Yes, but some guns make it a heck of a lot easier to do so, and in large numbers. We’ve had Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Aurora movie theater, a Portland mall, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and others on an Arizona street, and now Newtown.  And as I was writing this, the Chicago Tribune reported that a 60-year-old man in Indiana was arrested after threatening […]

2016-11-21T13:08:43-05:00December 17th, 2012|nursing perspective|5 Comments
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Precarious Hope: A Hospice Nurse Balances Truth and Kindness

This couple might be your elderly neighbors: he helps his wife into the house as she moves slowly, step by unsteady step, in time with her four-point cane; at the same time, you know that he is recovering from recent chemotherapy treatments. Or they may be your aging parents: your mother’s role as primary caregiver hampered by her right leg weakness from a stroke and advancing heart disease, while your father needs more care from day to day as his renal failure approaches the decision to begin dialysis or not. They support and care for each other.

PrecariousHopeIllustrationThe December Reflections column in AJN, “Precarious Hope,” is by an RN case manager at a hospice. She describes a couple in which one partner has dementia and the other has cancer, their mutual dependency, and the challenge of knowing how best to care for them:

In hospice, I’m often confronted with the difficulty of balancing honesty with kindness. I love a quote often attributed to the Buddha: “When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” It follows that sometimes what is true is not kind, and that truth must be cloaked in kindness—as in this instance, as I sit at the table listening to George, whose hopeful, unrealistic comments confirm that he simply can’t hear the truth.

It’s a sensitive portrait of love, the fine line between self-delusion and perseverance, and the way that sometimes simply bearing witness is the […]

2016-11-21T13:08:44-05:00December 14th, 2012|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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