‘What’s Not to Like?’ A British Nurse, Recently Treated for Cancer, Weighs In on U.S. Health Reform

Here’s a little perspective on health care reform in the U.S. from AJN’s contributing editor on international health. Jane Salvage, RGN, BA, MSc, HonLLD, FQNI, is a visiting professor at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King’s College, London, and recently spent a year on the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery.

Just two weeks ago I learned I had a stage 1 endometrioid adenocarcinoma—a cancer in the lining of my womb. In many other countries today, and in the UK until recent years, this would eventually have killed me. But here I am today, happily home after a hysterectomy, probably cancer-free, thanking my lucky stars and our British National Heath Service (NHS).

My life has been saved by an army of people, from nurses and doctors to lab assistants, many of whom I’ll never meet. All my high quality care was free at the point of delivery, efficiently funded from my taxes instead of boosting the profits of insurance officials or millionaire surgeons. And I am pleased that my taxes have also subsidized the care of the demented, impoverished old lady in a nearby bed, even though her hollering and howling kept us awake most of the night.

What’s not to like? A great deal, you’d think from the nonsense talked about our UK NHS during your U.S. health reform debates. Last September, visiting the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing, I stayed at the same […]

2018-03-27T16:36:45-04:00March 26th, 2010|health care policy, nursing perspective|8 Comments
Read More

‘After Heart Surgery’: A Survivor’s Account in March’s ‘Art of Nursing’

by Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

“I am grateful for the two hours my heart / stopped,”  says the narrator of  “After Heart Surgery.” It’s an incredible, heart-stopping line.  The voice is that of someone who has literally returned from the dead. He tells the tale with lively wonder, pledging  “allegiance to each leaflet of my bicuspid valve.” And yet as he lies in the bed, “eyes open,” attending carefully to his own heartbeat, we sense his lingering fear, too.

Poet Richard Waring doesn’t flinch from difficult subjects and offers them to us with rare clarity. In an earlier poem, “Oboe,” Waring wrote of a boy’s time on a locked ward and how music helped him find “the grammar of a new survival.” (For either poem, click on the link and then open the PDF.) Waring is also a senior layout artist at the New England Journal of Medicine; his poems have appeared in venues as varied as Chest and The Boston Globe. We’re honored to have his work in our pages.

If you’re a poet or a visual artist, we hope you’ll consider submitting to Art of Nursing. Read this blog post for details. Guidelines can be found here. Still have questions? Write to the Art of Nursing coordinator (me) at sylvia.foley@wolterskluwer.com.

Bookmark and Share
[…]

2016-11-21T13:18:35-05:00March 26th, 2010|Nursing|0 Comments
Read More

Online Social Networks for Chronic Illness – Time for Providers to Take Them Seriously

For many people, social networks are a place for idle chatter about what they made for dinner or sharing cute pictures of their pets. But for people living with chronic diseases or disabilities, they play a more vital role.

“It’s really literally saved my life, just to be able to connect with other people,” said Sean Fogerty, 50, who has multiple sclerosis, is recovering from brain cancer and spends an hour and a half each night talking with other patients online.

That’s from an article in the technology section of today’s NY Times, which draws upon a report from the Pew Internet and American Life Foundation about how people with chronic illnesses are finding connection, support, and information in online social networks like DiabetesConnect.

Chronic illness can be isolating for many reasons: you often can’t explain a condition’s relentlessness and complexity to those around you; at the same time, you may be homebound or to some degree limited in the types of activities you can engage in.

Providers should be aware of such online networks and the role they play for patients. Patients get useful information about self-care, and they feel less alone—though some who study online social networks do caution against any sites where the mood is focused entirely on the negative. Good feelings and bad (like good information and bad) can both be infectious on the Web, as we’ve learned during recent political debates.

2016-11-21T13:18:36-05:00March 25th, 2010|digital health, Nursing|1 Comment
Read More

Is Nurse Jackie Good for What Ails You?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5op6IdCXYqo]

Season 2 of the Edie Falco series on Showtime kicked off yesterday evening. Two immediate observations in passing: Jackie’s lifestyle is starting to catch up with her (so the show may be unrealistic at times, but it’s not all fantasy) and the episode’s most significant representation of patient advocacy showed Jackie on the phone trying to get a patient insurance coverage (good timing, on the eve of Obama’s signing of the health insurance reform bill).

We posted on “Nurse Jackie” from different angles (skeptical, enthusiastic) back during season one. It’s just entertainment, say many people. Others resent the less than idealized depiction of a nurse. Others find a heroic figure in Jackie despite her bad behavior. Or because of it. And so it goes. But the show does seem to have staying power. Are you watching? Are you a nurse watching, and how does that feel?

Bookmark and Share

2016-11-21T13:18:39-05:00March 23rd, 2010|career|4 Comments
Read More

Might Health Care Reform Happen? And What Will It Mean for Nurses?

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editorial director/interim editor-in-chief

Sometime in the next few days, Congress may bring the health care reform issue to a final vote and even a resolution of sorts, though one never knows what new twists may occur before then. I can’t even imagine what will occupy the news if it really does pass. (Philandering professional athletes and pilfering politicians better beware as newspapers seek new headlines.) 

Many Americans are calling their legislators to tell them what they want and don’t want. At the same time, many remain confused by the complexity of the legislative process as well as the particulars of the legislation. The final push received a boost this week from projections by the Congressional Budget Office that the bill would cut the budget deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next two decades. 

As nurses, we need to be knowledgeable and concerned with how health care will shape up—we’ll be delivering it. For information on the current bills under consideration, here’s two accessible sources: the Washington Post has a comparison of what the already passed Senate bill and the reconciliation version under consideration by the House include; the New York Times provides a pdf of the House bill.

Here’s a short list of provisions related to nursing likely to be in a final bill (as we noted in a post back in December about a useful ANA chart comparing House and Senate bills at the time):

2016-11-21T13:18:42-05:00March 19th, 2010|health care policy, nursing perspective|4 Comments
Read More

Comment ground rules

1. Please be respectful.
2. We moderate all comments.

Content disclaimer

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.
Go to Top