Same Boat, Different Ocean

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Since the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing report was released six months ago, we’ve heard a lot about how nurses need to have more representation on boards of health care institutions and be more active participants in decisions about redesigning health care delivery systems. (See our online resource page for a variety of information about the report.)

To me, it’s a recommendation that’s so intuitive and simple that it’s almost embarrassing—and the need for it only drives home how absurd our health care system can be. It’s mind-boggling to me that organizations feel they can plan effective health care without the input of nurses. Imagine aircraft manufacturers designing a plane without input from the primary group—pilots—who will be responsible for flying it safely.

I suppose many health care entities and boards  feel that they have this input from physicians—but really, in most hospitals physicians aren’t involved in the nitty-gritty operations details that either make or break workflow processes or can impede the delivery of safe, cost-effective care.  How many times have hospitals planned patient care units or purchased equipment without nursing, input only to find that the systems aren’t workable or create more work? […]

2016-11-21T13:13:34-05:00April 12th, 2011|health care policy, nursing perspective|12 Comments
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Nurses, Summits, and Salt Lake: The Challenges Facing New Nursing Grads

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I’m attending the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA) annual convention, in Salt Lake City, Utah. I always gripe about meetings here—but then I arrive and realize I’d forgotten what a beautiful place it is. For one thing, there are the mountains rising up behind the cityscape—everywhere you look, there they are. (The photo here was taken from the plane as it was approaching Salt Lake City.)  There’s something really relaxing about these views.

I always enjoy this conference—I love meeting the future generation of nurses. This year’s group—about 2,400 strong—are enthusiastic, passionate, and serious about a career, not just a job. Many are people who’ve already been in the workforce. According to figures from the NSNA about the attendees, 47% are 26 or older, 22% are 36 or older, 52% will be graduating from baccalaureate programs, and 93% plan to continue their education. Impressive statistics.

Yesterday’s keynote speaker was Patrick Hickey, a professor at University of South Carolina–Columbia School of Nursing, who has summited the seven highest peaks in the world. He spoke about the challenges of his climbs, especially Mount Everest, where he spread the ashes of a friend who was supposed to have been with him. It was fitting—here, with mountains all around us, and with many in the audience facing their own uphill climb […]

2016-11-21T13:13:35-05:00April 7th, 2011|Nursing|7 Comments
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Nursing and Women’s Basketball Go Back a Long Way

Nursing Student Basketball Team, Grace Hospital, Detroit, 1924

By Maureen ‘Shawn’ Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

I’m a big college basketball fan (to me, professional teams seem less about the team and more about the players). When I was growing up in the city, playground basketball was the only sport that was accessible on a daily basis. (OK, there was a ping-pong table, but that just didn’t seem as exciting.) I learned to play the game there, and then played in high school and for one year in college as a freshman. After that, nursing classes and a part-time job interfered. More recently, I coached grammar school and middle school girls teams (one of the funnest things I’ve done!).

I love that the women’s NCAA college basketball tournament has received more and more coverage each year. A few years ago, one was hard-pressed to find out when the games were being televised. Now, they’re enjoying prime time, if not a prime channel. (Women’s games—and tonight’s championship game between Notre Dame and Texas A&M—are usually broadcast on cable, on ESPN.)

So here’s some trivia: many people may not know that most nursing schools had basketball teams in their early days—as far back as the 1920s. It’s always been interesting to me that, despite the oppressive and convent-like restrictions placed on nursing students, these young women could play basketball! There were leagues among schools—the AJN archives has articles and photos of early teams (the photo above shows the team […]

2016-11-21T13:13:36-05:00April 5th, 2011|Nursing|0 Comments
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‘A True Art’: Strategies for Feeding Patients with Dementia

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

Feeding difficulties in people with dementia are common, but the way such difficulties manifest can vary widely, and there is no single, one-size-fits-all solution. Nurse researchers Chia-Chi Chang and Beverly L. Roberts open their April CE article, “Strategies for Feeding Patients with Dementia,” with some disturbing statistics that make clear the scope of the problem:

People with dementia constitute roughly 25% of hospital patients ages 65 and older and 47% of nursing home residents. And more than half of them lose some ability to feed themselves, which puts them at high risk for inadequate food intake and malnutrition. Patients who are unable to eat independently must rely on caregivers to assist them . . . Unfortunately, caregivers may be unable to identify the various types of feeding problems that accompany dementia or unaware of the feeding practices required to address them.

In an earlier literature review published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing, Chang and Roberts evaluated three tools used to assess feeding difficulties in people with dementia, then created a conceptual model depicting such difficulties, contributing factors, and outcomes. Now, in this CE article, the authors take their work […]

2016-11-21T13:13:37-05:00April 1st, 2011|nursing research|2 Comments
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Vampire Nurses, PhDs, Your Best Moment as a Nurse: Today’s Notes from the Nursosphere

Here are some recent posts of interest we noticed on the nursing blogs. Many of these blogs can actually be found on our blogroll, so we hope you’re exploring what’s there from time to time, even if we know the list isn’t exhaustive and is probably missing some other excellent (and at least somewhat frequently updated) blogs.

It’s good to know that Will, the nurse/comic artist who shares his drawings at Drawing on Experience, has started posting again more regularly. One of his most recent efforts depicts a night shift nurse as a kind of vampire. It’s funny and, in a way, insightful. We give just a thumbnail version of it below on the right, in the interests of preserving the artist’s copyright; to see it enlarged, click the image and visit the version posted on his site, where you can also find a bunch more drawings, many about his life as a relatively new nurse. 

The INQRI Blog (that INQRI stands for Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative, a real mouthful) has a new post about an increase in enrollment in nursing doctorate programs. Here’s an excerpt:

According to new data released recently by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), enrollment in doctoral nursing programs increased significantly in 2010. The AACN believes that this shows a strong interest in both research-focused and practice-focused doctorates.

The post also connects […]

2016-11-21T13:13:39-05:00March 30th, 2011|career, students|1 Comment
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