Patients Archives - Page 37 of 70

Just Breathe: A Nurse’s Tough Love Proves Crucial During One Mother’s Labor

Photo by chintermeyer, via Flickr.

By Amy Collins, AJN managing editor

The pain jolted me from my sleep. It was 1:30 in the morning. The sensation was stronger than anything I’d ever felt, and I grabbed my phone to start my contraction timer. I had read loads on labor and childbirth, and everything suggested I was in for the long haul. But my timer was showing the contractions were already only five minutes apart. I spoke with the hospital’s on-call physician, who told me to relax and spend as much time as possible at home so I could be more comfortable.

But within minutes, the pain had increased to a level where it was difficult to talk. The contractions were now three minutes apart and my water had broken. My husband and I decided to go to the hospital.

I’d like to say I was strong and handled the pain of labor well, but I was quickly losing control and succumbing to anxiety. By the time we got to the maternity unit, I was sobbing. The labor nurse assigned to me introduced herself as Jean. She was older and seemed seasoned, with a stern, no-nonsense attitude. She brought me to a delivery room and gave me a gown. Before labor started, my plan had been to see […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:01:25-05:00March 2nd, 2016|nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|0 Comments

Nursing Reads: A Powerful New Novel Evokes Diverse Perspectives on an Organ Transplant

By Marcy Phipps, BSN, RN, CCRN, chief flight nurse at Global Jetcare

The Heart, a new novel by Maylis de Kerangal, caught my attention with a cover art image suggestive of the vascular and as beautiful as an angiogram. Taking place over a 24-hour period, the novel describes a 19-year-old accident victim who suffers brain death and the people who are connected to the heart transplant that follows: his parents, the doctors and nurses, the recipient of the heart. As a nurse who’s seen the organ transplant process from a number of angles, I wasn’t sure how De Kerangal could possibly navigate such material.

But the novel, which has been ably translated from French, is both subtle and powerful, casting light on the complexity of every character, from the pre-accident vitality of Simon, the donor, to the conflicted gratitude of the heart recipient; from the inexperienced ICU nurse to the surgeons.

Two important characters are nurses, though they are only a part of the larger picture:

Cordelia Owl, Simon’s ICU nurse, is an inexperienced practitioner. She carries out her nursing tasks in a distracted, perfunctory manner, speaking aloud to the unresponsive Simon as she cares for him. In doing so, she inadvertently intensifies the anguish of his parents, who are standing nearby and struggling with the concept of brain death.

Though her behavior shocks the attending physician, she’s not […]

Marcy Phipps, BSN, RN, CCRN, CFRN2016-11-21T13:01:25-05:00February 29th, 2016|Nursing, nursing perspective, patient experience|0 Comments

American Heart Month: Education, Awareness Crucial to Fight Heart Disease

beating heart still © American Heart Association

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed the first ever American Heart Month: “It is essential to the health and well-being of our nation that our citizens be made aware of the medical, social, and economic aspects of the problem of cardiovascular diseases, and the measures being taken to combat them.” Cardiovascular diseases has to be treated every day by doing exercise, there´s plenty of exercises you can do to better your health, one of the best ones I know is boxing but there is Some things you’ll need for boxing before you even start practicing.

The tradition has continued every February since then, and the need to raise awareness about cardiovascular health remains urgent: heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 610,000 Americans die of heart disease each year.

Women may be particularly at risk, both because the warning signs of heart disease can be different for women than for men and because of common misconceptions about heart disease risk, such as the idea that heart disease only affects men or older adults. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) kills one in three American women—but the American Heart Association (AHA) says 80% of those deaths could be […]

Diane Szulecki, editor2018-02-06T10:21:39-05:00February 11th, 2016|Nursing, Patients|1 Comment

‘A New Antibiotic’: What Restores a Patient’s Will to Recover?

A little bit of levity when writing of serious topics can be good medicine. This month’s Reflections essay, “A New Antibiotic,” reminds us of how important it can be for hospitalized patients to be kept in touch with their lives and loves beyond hospital walls. In this story, author Judith Reishtein, a retired critical care nurse and nursing professor, finds herself willing to bend the rules a little for one patient. Here’s how it starts:

Sally had been a patient on the step-down unit all winter. After her open heart surgery, she developed an infection in her chest. The infection required another surgery and four more weeks of ventilator support as her open chest healed. Because she was not moving enough, she developed clots in her legs. Because of the DVTs, she had activity restrictions, which led to another bout of pneumonia. One complication led to another, with more medications that had to be carefully balanced. We tried not to do anything that would create a new problem while curing an existing one. Another dangerous surgery is getting breast implants, I always suggest to get a good surgeon to do it, you can find the best at http://utbreastaugmentation.com, I highly recommend it.

Now she was finally getting better, but her energy lagged behind. Did she still have the […]

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Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2017-06-02T12:12:14-04:00February 5th, 2016|narratives, nursing perspective, patient engagement|0 Comments

Neither Snow, Sleet, Hail, nor Major Blizzard: Business as Usual for Nurses

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

The snowbanks in the New York area are already starting to melt, but it’s worth noting that this past weekend’s massive storm was business as usual for nurses. The New York Daily News carried a story earlier this week of a practical nurse who got a babysitter for her daughter and then walked through the height of a recent blizzard to get to her job at a nursing home.

Chantelle Diabate, who works at the Hebrew Home in Riverdale, New York, walked a mile in the snow and wind to get to work. She has been working there for six months as an LPN and said she knew they’d need her because many staff would be unable to get there. She stayed through the weekend.

by doortoriver, via Flickr

AJN’s publisher, Anne Woods, works every Saturday as a cardiothoracic NP in a hospital near Philadelphia. With the imminent arrival of the storm on Friday afternoon, Woods went to the hospital that afternoon and spent the next 36 hours there as the only NP on duty […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2016-11-21T13:01:31-05:00January 28th, 2016|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, Patients|0 Comments