Bullying Wars: Theresa Brown vs. ‘the entire physician profession’

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

On May 11, an op-ed piece written by nurse and New York Times blogger Theresa Brown on bullying by physicians caused some physicians to protest (full disclosure: Brown’s honest and moving ethical meditation on a very different topic, “Right Treatment, Right Patient?”, was just published in our June issue).

Notable among her critics was Kevin Pho of the popular blog, Kevin MD, who wrote that Brown “unfairly blames doctors for hospital bullying.” He claimed that Brown uses her writing outlet to “metaphorically bully the entire physician profession.” Another commentary (by physician Ford Vox, writing in The Atlantic Monthly) accused Brown of publicly “drawing and quartering” her colleagues.

Spare me, please. Brown used a recent personal encounter to illustrate a problem that is, unfortunately, commonplace in hospitals.  She used it as a lede and parlayed the story into an insightful piece about bullying in hospitals.  (From experiences I had and witnessed during my clinical years, I actually thought it was a fairly mild example.) Ironically, the strong language used to counter Brown’s commentary made it seem that physicians were trying to bully Brown into silence because she’d spoken out. As if to say: how dare a nurse challenge physician behavior?  […]

2016-11-21T13:12:51-05:00June 1st, 2011|career, healthcare social media, nursing perspective|7 Comments
Read More

The Sacraments of Nursing

At the center of Sister Thecla’s demonstrations was an old manikin that lived all its days on the hospital bed at the front of the classroom. I can still see its chipped, painted face—the trust in the eyes, the unreadable thin lips. I can see Sister Thecla turning that manikin on its side, taking care so the blanket wouldn’t slip and expose any imagined privates. And Sister Thecla’s hands—how they were all tenderness, and how somehow, right before our eyes, they transubstantiated the cotton backside of that manikin into the feverish, aching flesh of a real sick person.

Every month, as you may know, we publish a personal essay inside our back cover. This month, our Reflections essay is by Madeleine Mysko, the coordinator of that monthly column. Madeleine, a novelist and poet who teaches writing in the Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs, is also a nurse. She helps us find potential writers and reviews most Reflections submissions. I edit all accepted submissions before publication, but I sometimes call on Madeleine for another point of view, especially if I’m stuck or if I sense I’m missing something crucial. She invariably has suggestions that make the essay flow more elegantly and cleanly—and strike home more powerfully.

The excerpt above is from her piece in the May edition of AJN. “The Sacraments of Sister Thecla” (for best reading, click through to the PDF version) describes a kind of mystical visitation from a teacher Madeleine had back in nursing […]

2016-11-21T13:12:54-05:00May 26th, 2011|career, students|0 Comments
Read More

Farewell to Nurses Week 2011

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So Nurses Week 2011 has come and gone. I was in Malta at the start of it—at the 2011 International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting in Valletta—and in New York City at the end of it.  From two disparate locations, there was a singular thread: nurses seeking information to improve the lives of their patients and themselves.

In Malta, there were over 2,000 nurses from all over the world. Some participated as their nation’s representatives in the Council of National Representatives (see an earlier post describing ICN activities); some came for the educational sessions, or to share experiences or initiatives that have made a difference in the lives of nurses or patients. (I wrote about two of these moving stories.) The conference also served as a reminder of how much I regret not being fluent in another language—four years of high school French and a French-speaking grandfather helped a little, but there’s nothing like meeting colleagues who speak two or three languages (their own native language, English, and usually a bit of another one) to make you realize how necessary it is to be multilingual in today’s world.

On one day, I was eating lunch with colleagues from Brazil and Belgium. […]

2016-11-21T13:12:58-05:00May 18th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|3 Comments
Read More

Notes of a Student Nurse: A Dose of Reality

By Jennifer-Clare Williams, who is a student at Cox College of Nursing and Health Sciences in Springfield, Missouri. This is her first post for this blog.

It’s been said before that we are our own worst enemies, our own worst critics. I can’t imagine a time when these phrases are truer than during nursing school. Little more than a year ago, when I was starting my prerequisites for admission to the BSN nursing program, I was giddy with excitement. Images of what life would be like played in my head like episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, or, on a day I was feeling a bit more goofy, reruns of Scrubs.

I took any opportunity I had to share with friends, family—even new apartment neighbors—that I was well on my way to nursing school with the confident smile of a person destined to save the world, one patient at a time. I scoured discussion boards and nursing student forums late into the night, anticipating the day that I, too, would have something profound to contribute.

I laughed off those who warned me that the path was difficult and ridden with challenges. There was no bridge I couldn’t cross, no task I couldn’t do, and no test I couldn’t pass with flying […]

2016-11-21T13:13:19-05:00May 4th, 2011|career, students|19 Comments
Read More

A Voice That People Will Hear: Tips on Getting Letters to the Editor Published

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

We get some interesting “letters to the editor” delivered to AJN’s editorial offices.

Many are what you might expect: letters disagreeing with an article or letters supporting an article, letters from retired nurses about how nursing has changed, and letters from students who write as part of a class assignment. Occasionally, we get letters worthy of framing, like a recent letter from a member of the U.S. Congress (we were delighted to find that members of Congress read AJN). We also get heartfelt letters from patients extolling the virtues of nurses who changed their lives.

The letters from nurses who support an article are in sharp contrast to those written out of disagreement. The supporters usually contain a poignant personal story or an argument based in professional experience or actual research, while the majority of those who don’t like something we’ve published are vehement and sometimes downright crude in their language.

We’re getting used to that, but we still wish it weren’t so, because we can’t publish those letters. (After receiving an especially vitriolic letter, former editor-in-chief Diana Mason wrote this editorial.) I received one the other day that began, “Those people . . . are laughable and pathetic.” And that was a mild one. […]

2016-11-21T13:13:22-05:00April 27th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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