Farewell to Nurses Week 2011

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So Nurses Week 2011 has come and gone. I was in Malta at the start of it—at the 2011 International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting in Valletta—and in New York City at the end of it.  From two disparate locations, there was a singular thread: nurses seeking information to improve the lives of their patients and themselves.

In Malta, there were over 2,000 nurses from all over the world. Some participated as their nation’s representatives in the Council of National Representatives (see an earlier post describing ICN activities); some came for the educational sessions, or to share experiences or initiatives that have made a difference in the lives of nurses or patients. (I wrote about two of these moving stories.) The conference also served as a reminder of how much I regret not being fluent in another language—four years of high school French and a French-speaking grandfather helped a little, but there’s nothing like meeting colleagues who speak two or three languages (their own native language, English, and usually a bit of another one) to make you realize how necessary it is to be multilingual in today’s world.

On one day, I was eating lunch with colleagues from Brazil and Belgium. […]

2016-11-21T13:12:58-05:00May 18th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Abandonment Guilt

This is the last in a series of posts by Sue Hassmiller, who has been blogging from the tornado destruction in Alabama, where she’s been volunteering with the Red Cross.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

I will do hospital visits today and have been told that the first family I will visit is a priority—an 8-year-old is not expected to make it through the day.  If he dies, then he will join his mother and brother, who were killed instantly. The father, who was at work when the tornado hit, was spared. We will talk to the father or the uncle. He speaks Spanish, so a translator will be present. 

How do you convey in words—especially through a translator—what you need to say, what you want to say? I will hug him . . . I know I will . . . everybody hugs here. And I know there will be survivor’s guilt. Not being a war veteran, this is the closest I have been to so much of it: a grandfather who survived while holding his 7-week-old granddaughter, who was “swept up and away”; an elderly mother who lost her 42-year-old daughter (a “famous paramedic . . . and helping so many”);  a wife of 32 years who lost her husband, the only breadwinner for the family—it goes on and on. 

The stories fill large white notebooks now, here at headquarters in Birmingham. And I am leaving tomorrow. I am leaving all of this behind and feel very acutely that I am abandoning them, all […]

2016-11-21T13:13:14-05:00May 16th, 2011|Nursing|2 Comments
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Meeting Nightingale in Alabama; Where Were the Young Nurses? Further Notes from the Disaster Zone

Sue Hassmiller has been blogging from the tornado-damaged area in Alabama, where she’s volunteering for the Red Cross. This and all other posts in this series are collected on a separate page for easy reference.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

Finishing up some very difficult hospital visits with victims and family members at the University of Alabama–Birmingham Medical Center today, I saw the sign for the school of nursing. I remembered Dean Dodi Harper telling me last year of a man who had donated to her school what might be the largest grouping of original Florence Nightingale letters. A priceless gift indeed! Her intent was to transcribe the letters and eventually have an exhibit. As I saw the School of Nursing sign, the conversation all came back to me . . . and then I realized it was May 12, Nightingale’s actual birthday, the day we celebrate Nurses Day! Too good to be true: I e-mailed the dean and got an immediate response (I love those type A personalities!). She was away, but the assistant dean for clinical affairs and partnerships, Cindy Selleck, would welcome me—and indeed on this occasion the letters were on display in a temporary exhibit. Having been on a special Nightingale tour last year to England and Istanbul/Scutari, the words of this great mentor had taken on a whole new meaning for me (here’s the blog series I wrote at the time). 

Seeing this very special exhibit and Nightingale’s words on her very […]

2016-11-21T13:13:15-05:00May 13th, 2011|Nursing, Public health|1 Comment
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Pay It Forward: A Meditation on Suffering, Volunteer Work, and Storytelling

Sue Hassmiller has been blogging from the tornado-damaged area in Alabama, where she’s volunteering for the Red Cross. This and all other posts in this series are collected on a separate page for easy reference.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

What an honor and privilege it is to help another human being—that’s how we all feel being here. There is no greater gift. Period. And we love to share our stories—including those that break our heart, especially those that break our heart. That’s what we do: we do our work and then we share our stories—our therapy, if you will. And we’re like kids at Christmas with what we are able to do for people, comparing the gifts we were able to give and reactions to those gifts. 

Today, because of the gift of money from Red Cross donors, I was able to take an inconsolable 21-year-old, who was swept up into the sky holding onto her baby for dear life, whose hard landing back to the ground caused six broken ribs,  a torn knee, a black eye, and a broken collarbone—and now pneumonia—and provide her with a doctor’s visit, filled prescriptions, food, and gas money to get to her doctor’s appointments and pick up her baby (who is doing well) from her boyfriend’s house many miles away. These are all the things we take for granted, but for her, on this day, luxuries.  […]

2016-11-21T13:13:15-05:00May 12th, 2011|Nursing|2 Comments
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‘Today I Cried’: A Family’s Loyalty, A Veteran’s Lost K-9 Helper

Sue Hassmiller has been blogging from the tornado-damaged area in Alabama, where she’s volunteering for the Red Cross. This and all other posts in this series are being collected on a separate page for easy reference.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

Today I cried.

Although I’ve seen horrific things and heard the worst stories imaginable here in Alabama, it was not until today that I cried. It had to do with my soft spot for daughters and dogs. 

The daughter. My morning visit was to a 50-year-old woman, Kate (not her real name), in the most rural of rural Alabama. Our team went to see her because she had lost not one family member, but three: her mother, her sister, and her brother. Kate told us that her mother and sister wouldn’t leave her wheelchair-bound, 6’ 4” brother for shelter. They didn’t have the strength to move him, so they simply sat with him in the living room and prayed for the best. She later found them in the field, with her sister still holding her brother in her arms.  […]

2016-11-21T13:13:16-05:00May 11th, 2011|Nursing|3 Comments
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