‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen’: One Persistent Nurse’s Take on Somalian Refugee Situation

By Shawn Kennedy, editor-in-chief

Gerry Martone is a nurse who has traveled to the far reaches of the world in his job as director of humanitarian resources at the International Rescue Committee (IRC). We ran a profile of Gerry in 2001 and also a photo essay. He’s also a skilled photographer and we’ve published his photo essays documenting his travels. (See here for one on assessing poverty in Afghanistan and here for one on Sudan refugees; click through to PDF versions for best viewing.)

So when I spoke with Gerry last week, shortly after he came back from a visit to a refugee camp in Kenya, it scared me when he said the situation in East Africa is the worst thing he’s ever seen. The region is plagued by a severe drought (Martone says it’s had no appreciable rain in two years), and while drought is a cyclical phenomenon there,  a struggling central government, lack of health and response systems, and ongoing  conflicts among local clans have worsened the situation, causing widespread food shortages. The global community is responding with aid, but for many, it will be too late.

He visited a UN camp outside the city of Dadaab, Kenya, to which more than 440,000 displaced people—mostly Somalians, who are the hardest hit—have fled. The IRC runs a hospital at the camp. The situation is dire: the UN estimates that, […]

2016-11-21T13:11:57-05:00September 20th, 2011|Nursing|14 Comments
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What One Thing Will Make Today Better for You?

As I entered Mr. Ricker’s room, I remembered that the night nurse had mentioned that his wife had been with him overnight. I knocked very lightly and opened the door a crack. The two of them were cuddled up closely in the bed.

“What One Thing Will Make Today Better for You?” That’s the title of the Reflections essay in the September issue of AJN, in case you thought a genie had materialized out of the steam from your afternoon coffee mug. A simple question, but one that author Susan Goff has used since the 1970s with her patients. Sometimes the answer is surprising—that is, sometimes we shouldn’t assume we know what patients want . . . or need. Sometimes, in the case of the patient she describes in this essay, there’s something that should trump NPO. We hope you’ll read the essay and let Susan know your thoughts in our comments section below.—JM, senior editor


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2016-11-21T13:11:58-05:00September 12th, 2011|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Remembering 9/11: Nurses Were There

By Shawn Kennedy, editor-in-chief

One can find many commemorative events for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 being held in those places (New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania) where planes hit, and in other cities as well. Some are appropriate and done well and others are (at least to me) over-the-top and tactless—like one New York City radio station playing tapes of the confusion and chaos from first responder radio transmissions; families and friends of victims don’t need to hear that and think of what their loved ones were going through in their final moments.

How we saw it then. AJN’s offices are located in New York City. In 2001, we could see the burning World Trade Center from our windows and we wrote about about our experiences and thoughts. We knew nurses would be in the forefront of responding to help, so we reached out to nurses here in New York and in the Washington, DC, area in order to report on what nurses there were doing. And we also carried a Viewpoint essay, in which one of our Muslim colleagues reported on the backlash that she was experiencing and made a plea for tolerance.

Our current coverage. In planning this September issue, we wanted to acknowledge the events in some way—hence our cover (thumbnail illustraton above) by artist and nurse Charlie Kaiman, who witnessed the events (see also his artwork from 2001 conveying that […]

2016-11-21T13:11:58-05:00September 9th, 2011|nursing perspective|8 Comments
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Killing Traditional Nursing Duties #2

This 2006 image depicted an adolescent female ...

Editor’s note: In early August, on our Facebook page, we asked if there were “old nursing habits” that should be killed off. We received a lot of feedback, which we described in a blog post, “Killing Traditional Nursing Duties #1.” We’re back now with feedback from our second question: “When you give IM injections, what site do you most often use—dorsogluteal (upper outer quadrant of
buttocks), ventrogluteal (lateral hip), or deltoid (upper arm)? Why?”

Hands down, the deltoid injection site was preferred for intramuscular (IM) injections, especially for immunizations and if the patient was an adult. (“People don’t have to drop their drawers” was my favorite reason cited.) A few of those who favored that site noted that, if they didn’t use the deltoid (because of the volume of the injection), they would then go to the ventrogluteal site. One person preferred the vastas lateralis (the outer middle third of the thigh), which wasn’t listed as a choice, but is certainly a site that’s used, especially in infants. And several respondents said they prefer the dorsogluteal site. Reasons given were “more comfort” and “more muscle.”

This is actually contrary to current evidence and teaching, which is that the preferred site is the ventrogluteal site. As noted in an article we did in February 2010, evidence indicates we should avoid the dorsogluteal site because “it poses unnecessary and unacceptable risks of […]

2016-11-21T13:11:59-05:00September 6th, 2011|nursing perspective, nursing research|3 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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