On the Road to the Future of Nursing

By Shawn Kennedy, interim editor-in-chief  

I’m writing this on the train to Washington, DC, heading to the National Summit on Advancing Health through Nursing, which is taking place November 30 and December 1. This is the next step of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Initiative on the Future of Nursing (see my October 8 blog post) and will launch the Campaign for Action—the plan for implementing the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine’s report, The Future of Nursing. (You’ll be able to access the webcast and a live chat of webcast users on November 30 here.)

If you haven’t read anything about this initiative, do so. If you’re a nurse and plan to be working for the next 10 years, the recommendations from this report, if implemented, will affect you in some way. Expect to see changes in the following areas, to name just a few:

  • how and where nurses practice
  • undergraduate and graduate curricula
  • licensing and certification criteria
  • reimbursement policies
     

Other nursing initiatives have come and gone, some more successful in achieving their goals than others. AJN will cover the progress of this initiative as it attempts to evolve from a written report to an active process that creates sustainable change. As a start, in the December issue, now available at ajnonline.com, AJN brings you a guest editorial by Susan Hassmiller, director of the Initiative on the Future of Nursing. There’s also a summary and analysis of the report in […]

2016-11-21T13:14:49-05:00November 29th, 2010|career|1 Comment
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Turkey, Sweet Potatoes, and Living Wills

By Christine Moffa, MS, RN, AJN clinical editor

When I was growing up, my family spent Thanksgiving dinner at my grandmother’s house. She was a star in the kitchen, with cooking and baking skills beyond compare. However, while she made a chocolate cream pie to kill for, her knack for turning every conversation into a newsfeed of various neighbors’ illnesses, symptoms, and near-death experiences, if not actual deaths, stood out more. She did this so much that my brother began referring to her as Grandma Kevorkian.

It turns out that death-and-dying discussions on Thanksgiving might not be such a bad thing, according to Engage with Grace, a nonprofit organization that promotes end-of-life discussions. In 2008 they launched a blog rally timed with Thanksgiving weekend, for bloggers to get the word out about end-of-life discussions. The idea is to have the conversation when most of the family members are together, and the Thanksgiving holiday is a perfect fit. There’s a five-question tool available on the site that can be used as a conversation starter, as well as other resources.

While talking about these topics could potentially clear a room, it’s a lot worse to be sitting at a family member’s bedside in the ICU and not knowing what to choose for them because they didn’t let you know in advance.

For additional information on end-of-life discussions and options, see the AJN articles “Life-Support Interventions at the End of Life: Unintended Consequences,” by […]

2016-11-21T13:14:50-05:00November 24th, 2010|nursing perspective, patient engagement, Public health|2 Comments
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Time to Pause and Commit to Act

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

Of all the holidays, Thanksgiving seems to me to be the most pure—it began way before the greeting card folks thought of it and commercialized it. And it was born out of something that often gets lost during the course of our busy days—connecting with others and saying thank you for what they do or what they mean to us.

Christine Moffa, AJN’s clinical editor, and I were discussing the holiday at a staff meeting, saying how we had never minded working on Thanksgiving. Patients, visitors, and colleagues—everyone was in a friendly, appreciative mode. Most hospital cafeterias served turkey dinners to the staff, so everyone was happy about that—and everyone got to have a real dinner break for a change!

It also seems that at Thanksgiving we’re still in the “giving” mode, maybe because it’s early in the holiday season. My first request-for-your-support e-mail this season came from photographer Ed Kashi; it’s one I’m glad he sent. Ed is an incredibly talented megastar of documentary photography (in my humble opinion); we’ve been fortunate to have some of his work grace our covers (July 2007 and our 2008 Family Caregiver supplement, as examples) and articles. His e-mail was about an online auction of photographs called Commit to Action, a collaborative project by VII Photo (a photo agency) and Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to generate funds for MSF work around the world.

The […]

2016-11-21T13:14:51-05:00November 24th, 2010|Nursing|1 Comment
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What Does Rappelling Down a Canyon Wall Have to Do With Nursing?

Alice Facente, a clinical educator in Connecticut, has published two Reflections essays in AJN in the past year: “The Dirtiest House in Town” and “At Her Mercy.”  Her last post on this blog can be found here.

We just returned home from Moab, Utah, where our 20-something son lives and works. His 50-something parents decided to visit him—we hadn’t seen him in many months. He earns his living as a mountain guide, leading people on extreme mountain-climbing adventures.

We just wanted to see him, not fulfill any fantasies of becoming daredevils. But we were game to see what he did for a living. He took us on a three-mile hike through incredibly gorgeous canyons and rock formations. It was strenuous, but we were able to keep up. When we came to the edge of a cliff, with the bottom of the canyon “only 100 feet down” or so, our son took off his bulging backpack—which we’d mistakenly assumed was full of snacks—and pulled out harnesses, ropes, helmets, and gloves. He then told us there was no way down except to rappel.

Did I mention I am afraid of heights? Since my son was well aware of my (very reasonable) fears, he had neglected to tell us his […]

2016-11-21T13:15:00-05:00November 15th, 2010|career, nursing perspective|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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