Nursing Archives - Page 92 of 406

Understaffing: A Policy Oblivious to the Unforeseen Swerves of Life and Nursing Shifts

The Roads of Life and Nursing 2019 by Julianna Paradisi

Neither life nor nursing shifts develop in a linear fashion. Both roads are full of unforeseen swerves. I was reminded of this over the weekend while sitting with a relative in an emergency department. Our weekend plans had been put on hold to accommodate this unforeseen swerve in health.

An ED staff under stress.

I couldn’t help but notice the emergency department staff were experiencing their own set of unforeseen curves this particular shift. Although it was early in the evening, to my experienced nurse’s eye they were already exhausted.

When we arrived, the triage nurse was being verbally accosted by two people who’d walked in off of the street, ranting and high, until a trio of security officers intervened. Another nurse hustled between triage and the bay area. A photograph of her young daughter on the reverse side of her ID badge dangled from the lanyard around her neck. Everyone looked tired.

The tricky ambiguities around nurses calling in sick.

Once my relative was confirmed as stable, I revealed to the other nurses that I was a nurse and said I’d noticed how busy they were that shift. The […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2020-01-09T10:53:17-05:00January 9th, 2020|Nursing, nursing career, wellness|2 Comments

Need Motivation to Write? Submit to the AJN/Nurse Faculty Scholars Mentored Writing Award

You know you should write, and you have several topics running through your mind, but you just can’t quite get it together—how to start, how to choose the topic, where to start . . . .

Well, you don’t have to go it alone.

Mentored writing.

The 2020 AJN/Nurse Faculty Scholars Mentored Writing Awards program is open for submissions. This is an annual program to promote mentorship and develop scholarly writing skills among nurses. It was conceived by the 2012–2015 cohort of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nurse Faculty Scholars Program, in honor of the mentorship they received.

This award was created to continue the legacy of mentorship and to support scholarship development for all nurses, and AJN is continuing this program as part of our mission to support excellence in nursing publishing.

The 2019 winner.

The winner of the 2019 award is Sara Wohlford, MPH, RN, from Roanoke, Virginia. She worked with her mentor, Kimberly Ferren Carter, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, to coauthor their winning article, “Nursing Engagement Improves Sustainability Outcomes for Healthcare,” which will be published later this year. […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2020-01-07T11:52:02-05:00January 7th, 2020|Nursing|0 Comments

2020: The International Year of the Nurse and Midwife

By Barbara Stilwell, PhD, RN, FRCN, executive director, Nursing Now, a three-year global campaign seeking to raise the profile of nurses

Barbara Stilwell of Nursing Now

The World Health Organization has declared that 2020, the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth, will be the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. The year represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to celebrate and thank nurses and midwives for all that they do, and to make clear the critical contribution that our professions can make in achieving universal health coverage. It is urgent that we make the most of 2020.

A global health care workforce crisis.

We are edging ever closer to a significant global health care workforce crisis. The WHO estimates that we are facing a shortfall of 18 million health workers to achieve and sustain universal health coverage by 2030—and approximately half of that shortfall, 9 million health workers, are nurses and midwives.

It is high time, therefore, that countries think radically differently about the way they train, deploy, and look after their health workers, particularly nurses and midwives. This will require political commitment and domestic resource mobilization. Countries will need to increase their allocation to health budgets to invest in their nursing and midwifery workforces, […]

Guest Author2020-01-03T10:39:51-05:00January 3rd, 2020|health care policy, Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health|0 Comments

January Issue: Spiritual Distress and Cancer, Recruitment of Foreign-Educated Clinicians, AJN Book of the Year Awards, More

“Nurses and midwives together constitute half of the global health workforce, and by declaring 2020 the ‘Year of the Nurse and Midwife,’ the World Health Organization is recognizing their critical roles in achieving global health goals.”—editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in her editorial, “Putting 2019 Behind Us”

With the new year upon us, the January issue of AJN is now live. Here are the highlights:

CE: Original Research: The Recruitment Experience of Foreign-Educated Health Professionals to the United States

The authors discuss the current state of international recruitment and report on the findings of their study of foreign-educated health professionals and recruiters to further illuminate the recruitment experience.

CE: Assessing and Managing Spiritual Distress in Cancer Survivorship

This article describes the concept of spiritual distress and illustrates how nurses can incorporate into practice evidence-based recommendations for addressing cancer survivors’ spiritual needs. […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2019-12-30T08:20:07-05:00December 30th, 2019|Nursing|0 Comments

AJN Off the Charts: Our Top 10 Posts of 2019

Here are the top 10 posts on AJN’s blog from the past year.

Most of the posts below are as relevant today as when published. They are from a variety of voices, on a variety of topics, from the very personal to urgent matters of clinical practice. Starting with #10:

10. Being a Bully and Being Bullied

9. Nurses Week: A Time to Reflect on the Incredible Work Nurses Do

8. Safety Starts with Self When Giving Chemo

7. Control: Ninety, and Still Haunted by a Husband’s Dying Promise

6. Morphine in Hospice Care: Why Family Members May Resist Its Use

5. If We Know How to Prevent Falls, Why Are Our Patients Still Falling?

4. Experienced Bedside Nurses: An Endangered Species?

3. What’s a Preceptor’s Duty When a New Nurse Doesn’t Fit the Unit?

2. Protocol to Reduce Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia Improves Outcomes, Lowers Costs

1. Case of Nurse Charged with Homicide for Medication Error Raises Concerns