Although I'd been a nurse for more than 20 years, this was the first time I had been so completely dependent on the health care system. I felt vulnerable. I knew too much. I needed to feel confident that the ED nurse assessing my injuries would do a thorough job and give unqualified support to a fellow nurse-turned-patient.
I underwent laparoscopic repair of an umbilical hernia two weeks ago (my 10 incisions are healing nicely, thank you, although the itching is nearly unbearable). In preparation for the operation, I was asked to have blood work done and to undergo an electrocardiogram.
When I arrived at the office where the electrocardiogram would be performed, the woman at the desk asked me what I was there for. I said, “An ECG.”
And then she “corrected” me: “You mean EKG.”
She also told me that the person who was to perform the procedure wasn’t in that day and that I’d have to come back and. . . . I needed her information—and I couldn’t afford to tick her off—so I didn’t respond.
But I wanted to. […]
In addition to the preconference workshops, keynote presentation, concurrent sessions, and panels that are the norm for large, national meetings, the conference will also include poster sessions. I think many nurses not involved in research or from academia ignore posters and think of them as “not-quite-good-enough-to-be-real-sessions” topics. That’s far from the truth in most instances, especially in established conferences that have “name” presenters filling program slots. We see poster sessions as a way to highlight new work, work that may not have broad appeal but is important, or that extends topics covered in a session.
I listened with interest because I frequently receive requests from companies that want us to casually mention their products or Websites on this blog. What the marketers who send these promotional materials don't seem to know is that AJN maintains a very clear separation between editorial and advertising content. This is very very important to us at a time when there are daily reports of research that's been ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies and of influenctial physicians and health care reporters with close ties to various health care industries.
I recently had an opportunity to speak with a group of eight disabled musicians from Zimbabwe who were touring the U.S. Their group is called Liyana, which means ‘it’s raining.’ Click here to listen to the podcast of the interview, as well as to some of their music.
And at Liyana’s Website, you can watch a trailer for an HBO documentary that’s currently being made about Liyana and the challenges they’ve faced. The lead singer and songwriter Prudence, for example, was abandoned by her mother—whose mother had recommended she simply starve Prudence to death instead. On their U.S. tour, Liyana performed on stages including Los Angeles’ House of Blues and New York’s Apollo Theater. They were celebrated for their courage and incredible talent, for their determination and hard work in chasing their vision.
Seeing Liyana provoked me to wonder: if they can do this, against such odds, what should the rest of us be able to do? (Though of course, we don’t all have such remarkable musical talent!) […]