Nursing Archives - Page 330 of 407

Today is Veteran’s Day . . .

By Shawn Kennedy, Interim EIC of AJN

. . . and unfortunately, because of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, there will be many more veterans of war and its brutality. And there will also be many more families who struggle with the stress of having a family member deployed, often to dangerous places.

In this month’s issue of AJN, Erin Gabany and Teresa Shellenbarger, authors of the feature article “Caring for Families with Deployment Stress,” note that “deployment was found to have a markedly negative effect on health and well-being, with spouses reporting loneliness, anxiety, and depression in 78.2%, 51.6%, and 42.6% of all cases, respectively.” And just this week, a study published in the journal Pediatrics reports that, among children ages three to eight, “[m]ental and behavioral health visits increased by 11% in these children when a military parent deployed; behavioral disorders increased 19% and stress disorders increased 18%.”

While nurses in the military may be aware of the demands and stresses on active duty military families, civilian nurses may not be—and they are the ones who are likely to see the families of the many reserve and National Guard troops now deployed. We’re pleased to be publishing Gabany and Shellenbarger’s article, and hope it will increase awareness of the issues many families face and help nurses provide support to these families.

Nurses, too, are being deployed in large numbers; many, like army nurse Major Christopher Vanfossen, author of our new […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:15:01-05:00November 11th, 2010|Nursing|0 Comments

A Tough Act to Swallow

By Christine Moffa, MS, RN, AJN clinical editor

For most people, eating is a simple pleasure that they usually take for granted. However, for patients recovering from stroke or esophageal disease, getting food down is a pretty big deal. Patients with dysphagia are at increased risk for malnutrition (which can lead to impaired healing), dehydration, and aspiration pneumonia. Unfortunately, liquid, soft, and pureed diets are not only unappealing and unappetizing for many patients, but they also mean different things at different hospitals. Have you ever seen a health worker “prepare” a liquid diet tray for a patient by taking the milk, juice, and mashed potatoes and mixing them together, then wondering why it’s taking an hour to get the patient to eat it? […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-04-18T15:54:41-04:00November 10th, 2010|Nursing, patient engagement|1 Comment

Why Do Needlestick Injuries Still Haunt Us 10 Years after Protective Legislation?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief

In 2008, a survey by the American Nurses Association (ANA) indicated that 64% of nurses reported a needlestick injury. That startling figure was reported by Marla Weston, CEO of the ANA, in her opening remarks last week when the ANA relaunched “Safe Needles Save Lives,” its campaign for use of safe needles in the workplace. The campaign originally launched ten years ago and was instrumental in passage of Public Law 106-430, the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act, which requires employers to “identify, evaluate, and make use of effective safer medical devices.” And while there have been inroads towards use of safer needle systems, the 2008 data show that much needs to be done.

Speaking from experience. Karen Daley, the ANA president, has long been a leader in advocating for safer needle systems. She sustained a needlestick injury while working in the ER a decade ago and contracted hepatitis and HIV infection. Her home state, Massachusetts, has been in the forefront of legislation. According to Angela Laramie from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, all hospitals in Massachusetts are mandated to use sharps injury prevention devices, maintain a log of any injuries, and submit an annual report to the state. Yet, state data show an average of 3,000 needlestick injuries yearly—and more than half of these are with devices that lack safe […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:15:02-05:00November 8th, 2010|Nursing|7 Comments

A Note on the Life Cycle of Blogs

This is just to say that we realize that personal blogs by nurses have life cycles. They wax and they wane. While a core few are updated consistently, with the occasional gap for a vacation, and live on and on, evolving their appearances or keeping the old reliable appearance, many more simply die a quiet natural death. In many cases, no one plays taps. They served their purpose, they were noticed by a few or many of us, and then they quietly grew quiet.

Sometimes the bloggers say goodbye. Sometimes they just stop as if abducted by aliens. Or by their lives, or jobs, or illness, or death, or families, or by an alter ego. Well, that last bit is just speculation. Often the blogs live on, like deserted homes with the furniture still in them, never growing dusty, never surrounded by weeds or visible decay yet somehow sad. Or not so sad: testaments to an episode in a life in which a voice was raised with humor or outrage or questioning in a solitary room with a keyboard somewhere after the kids were in bed or while the DVR recorded the latest episode of something or other or early in the morning while the plows scraped the streets of the night’s snowfall.

Some nurse bloggers are more bloggers than nurses, […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:15:04-05:00November 5th, 2010|healthcare social media, narratives, nursing perspective|6 Comments

‘Goodbye Cherry Ames’ – On Whether Nurses Change the World

For a moment of respite from the beeps and buzzes, I walked back to the stillness of my office, wondering how I’d ever questioned the reason for the toughness and practicality of the nurses when I first came here. How could they be otherwise and survive?

But it wasn’t even 15 minutes later that a nurse about my age stood in my doorway and proudly introduced her college-age son. “Kids today have great opportunities,” she said. “He wants to change the world.” Then she looked away and said, “Me, I just do a job.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “You really feel you aren’t changing the world too, the world of these patients? People who come here with a chronic disease—who could view it as a life sentence? Don’t you realize that you help them know they can actually live with it, resume their lives, move ahead?”

She listened, but seemed unconvinced. Her eyes shining, she replied, “It’s me who learns from them, who’s come to realize that if I’m ever in a situation like theirs, I can go on.”

That’s an excerpt from “Goodbye Cherry Ames,” the Reflections essay in the November issue of AJN. It’s by a social worker who planned to become a nurse. Click through (the PDF version is best), read the short essay, and (if you’re feeling inspired) let us know in the comments below what you would have told that discouraged nurse.—JM, senior editor/blog editor