But we know that the bottom line for many American women remains this: "Are you really telling me that it's better not to know as early as possible that I might have cancer? You must be kidding!" After all, we've all heard of someone whose life may have been saved by the early detection provided by a mammogram.
We like your comments. In fact, we need them. We’re grateful when you express an opinion, raise a question, respond to each other. Below we’ve collected some recent comments that we particularly appreciated. We have a constantly growing number of readers or visitors. We’re happy about this–but we hope that more of you will go beyond reading and take a moment to let us know your responses. (About your privacy: When you comment, you have to give a valid e-mail address to the system. However, this e-mail address will not be published unless you deliberately insert it into the body of the comment. When you sign your comment, you can use your full name or initials or whatever else you’d like to identify yourself to other readers. It’s entirely up to you!)
About Nurses Write, Right?:
“If 1 percent of the three million nurses in the USA would write about what they do, we could take over health care.”
–Dr. Teena McGuinness
About Saving SimBaby-Teaching Nurses to Speak Up, a post about using simulation technology for training nurses:
“I used to dread simulation situations (like ACLS years ago when it was much more stressful). Now I think they are the best way to learn and to teach some situations. Reproducing a certain degree of anxiety helps young nurses, and more experienced nurses, learn how to keep anxiety and stress from becoming fear. Being forced to repetitively face those anxieties diminishes the likelihood that a nurse will be overwhelmed by them in a […]
Below we reproduce a letter from Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to all U.S. health care professionals. It explains why the FDA (and most experts) believe the current H1N1 vaccine is as safe as any of the seasonal flu vaccines that are produced using the same process. Many nurses remain reluctant to get the vaccine, as are many patients. Some we’ve heard from have changed their minds as they’ve seen the sudden and devastating effects of this virus on patients in their hospitals. We hope this letter will provide some context for thinking about the current H1N1 vaccine, and for addressing the concerns of patients.
Dear Healthcare Professional,
I am writing first to thank you for your extraordinary efforts during the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak.
As this new infectious disease sweeps through communities across the country, you must juggle your usual patient care responsibilities with a special role in influenza response. Delays in vaccine delivery and the persistence of myths about vaccination have not made your job any easier. Thank you for rising to this public health challenge.
I am also writing to provide information that can be helpful as you talk to patients about the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccines — the best tools we have to prevent severe illness and death caused by the virus.
As the Commissioner […]
By Genevieve Coorey, BSN, MA(Ed.). Coorey is the quality assurance and program director at the National Kidney Foundation and was the lead author of “Barriers to Preemptive Kidney Transplantation,” published in the November issue of AJN.
Talk with any nursing colleague who cares for people with a chronic, complex disease and you will hear about the resilience and patience with which they accept—even triumph over—the effects of their illness.
Cheryl learned nine years ago that her kidneys were failing. “At one point, I was so weak from anemia and malnutrition I could barely lift a dinner plate. Walking through a grocery store was a struggle. I used a wheelchair briefly because my legs were so filled with fluid. My husband . . . had to carry me at times, because I was too weak to walk.”
A long-time school friend gave Cheryl one of his kidneys. She took up biking when her recovery allowed and the next summer she rode a 69-mile segment of a huge annual bike ride across Iowa; two years later she rode all 500 miles. Now Cheryl is a seven-time gold medal winner at three separate National Kidney Foundation U.S. Transplant Games events and a two-time bronze medal winner at the World Transplant Games. Extraordinary.
The baby’s condition is going downhill fast. A medical team surrounds the infant, tersely exchanging instructions. The gripping scenario has the participants’ hearts beating fast, but the baby on the table is SimBaby, a manikin with sophisticated robotics that’s used in health care simulation training.
As in a real situation, “there is adrenalin in a simulation,” explains Elaine Beardsley, MN, RN, clinical nurse specialist in the pediatric simulation program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “Even though it is a simulated environment, people get nervous. People talk more.” However, Beardsley says, the structured communication training within the simulation “cuts the chatter.”
The November AJN Reports focuses on ways that SimBaby is helping teams of nurses and physicians at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital learn to avoid the kinds of communication breakdowns that, studies have shown, can lead to errors in stressful situations. The training includes creating a safe environment in which nurses and residents are encouraged to speak up to physicians “when they perceive mistakes being made.”
“Simulation, in my mind, is about getting us to communicate better,” says Jennifer Reid, MD, assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital and codirector of the hospital’s ED simulation program. “Our training is such that physicians and nurses are usually educated, trained, and practice more or less in parallel. Simulation is an opportunity-a rare one-for us to learn and train together, working consciously on our communication skills. When else do I […]
