Amidst Nursing’s Daily Challenges, a Longing for Enduring Meaning

Early ideals, current reality.

I recently co-facilitated a breakout session at a national nursing conference in which we had the participants reflect upon life experiences that sparked their initial desire to go into nursing.

Some knew from a very early age that they were drawn to providing care for others. Others, like myself, were second-career nurses who had spent time in other professions before making our way into nursing.

We spent time talking about our early idealism about the profession and the various experiences or issues that have challenged our ideals over time. I was struck by the deep and broad range of emotions in the room: pride, frustration, hope, discouragement, cynicism, and longing.

‘An almost palpable ache.’

It is the longing that stood out to me the most.

The nurses I met in that room, and nurses I meet everywhere, certainly express longing for better staffing, improved systems that facilitate smoother workflow, and a supportive work environment. But these are all longings that tie into one deeper longing, which is a longing for enduring meaning in our day-to-day work—as hard as some […]

Daughter or Nurse? Caught Between Roles When a Father Is Hospitalized

“Word moves quickly that a patient on the unit has a daughter who is an RN.”

That’s from this month’s Reflections essay, “The Other Side,” in which a nurse struggles with her own mounting helplessness as her father’s hospital stay following surgery is unexpectedly prolonged.

On the other side.

The author finds herself in an uncomfortable in-between position, one that may be familiar to other nurses who have had family members in the hospital.

“I am an outsider, a family member on the other side. I know there is information not shared with me, information the health care team keeps to themselves. These conversations take place in whispered voices outside the room—conversations I have been a part of in the recent past, on my unit.”

[…]

What Do Haiku Have to Do with Nursing?

Nurse poets among us.

April is National Poetry Month, and all kinds of excellent poetry will be highlighted in various online and other venues, including, of course, in AJN’s Art of Nursing column, where the poem “Cat-a-tonic” by Shawna Swetech is featured this month (click on the pdf in the upper right corner of the landing page for the best version). I’m not a poet, though there are many nurse poets among us, and I’m not a fan of every poem I meet, but one form that is guaranteed to interest me every time is the haiku.

A short, simple poetic form.

Centuries ago, Japanese poets wrote the first haiku poems. A haiku has a very specific structure:  three lines only, with exactly five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Five-seven-five. (Though not every haiku today follows these rules strictly.) A haiku might rhyme, or not; it may or may not include punctuation or typical capitalization.

“Scrubs” not “uniforms” –
simpler than we used to wear.
Still, I miss my whites.

Traditionally, haiku have been written to celebrate nature. The best of these paint beautiful pictures in a few simple words. They are often very musical to […]

2019-04-02T07:57:53-04:00April 2nd, 2019|Nursing, writing|6 Comments

‘We Request Your Quiescent Contribution’: Predatory Publishers Are Absurd, But Not Funny

Multiple daily solicitations.

The screenshot below shows an excerpt from an email our editor-in-chief recently received. Editors at AJN receive multiple emails daily from mysterious publishers soliciting them for article submissions, important roles on editorial boards, or as conference speakers. If it weren’t alarming, it would be flattering. We’re not scholars and experts in sub-specialties of botany or engineering, in fossil fuel geology, neurosurgery, or, for that matter, microbiology. Our advice on such topics might well be dangerous, or at least irrelevant and wrong.

Some open access journals are highly respected in their fields; the journal that sent this letter also bills itself as open access, but if it contains legitimate articles on microbiology, and I’m not saying it doesn’t, they may find themselves with strange bedfellows.

Despite obvious warning signs, some authors are not deterred.

It’s impossible to keep ahead of the flood of such emails, most of which are characterized by typographical oddities and peculiar juxtapositions of tone. There are many other tell-tale signs of predatory publishers, most of which have little or no oversight from real content experts and no editing or filtering of content (one must simply pay a fee to be published or attend a conference).

But what’s most worrisome about this trend is that their strategy […]

AJN Wants You! A Call for Peer Reviewers and Authors

nurse typing on keyboardTake your career to the next step—become a peer reviewer or author.

For over 118 years, AJN has presented its readers with timely and informative content to support best nursing practice and to examine issues of the day that are relevant to nurses and the profession. While that’s still our aim today, content development is more complex—it now includes peer review; fact-checking to ensure accuracy; citing evidence from the literature; ethical guidelines that govern editor, reviewer, and author behavior; careful editing to meet standards for quality writing; transparency to avoid bias and conflicts of interest. We’re proud of our commitment to high standards, and our success is borne out by the many awards we’ve received—more than any other nursing journal.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without the help of peer reviewers and authors, who commit to making the content we publish the best that it can be: timely, accurate, readable, and useful.

Peer reviewers are essential to any scholarly journal.

Peer-reviewing is also an excellent way for fledgling writers to better understand what editors look for in manuscripts. We welcome new reviewers who have expertise in nursing, are current with the literature and practice in their area of expertise, have a master’s degree or higher (or a BSN and certification in a specialty area), and are willing to review three to […]

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