House of Death, House of Life: Reflections of a Hospice Volunteer

Perhaps the fundamental requirement for hospice volunteers is an open mind. Assumptions and first impressions rarely predict reality. I met a soft-spoken woman who was once a nun, then later became a theme park belly dancer. I met an ex-Marine officer and small-town police chief, a self-described “soldier by nature,” who denounced all wars after 1945 as senseless bloodbaths. I met a former civil rights activist upset that minorities were moving into his neighborhood.

lllustration by McClain Moore. All rights reserved. lllustration by McClain Moore. All rights reserved.

That’s from the August Reflections essay in AJN, “House of Death, House of Life.” The author, Ezra Ochshorn, explores the moments of tragedy and levity he encounters in his work as a hospice volunteer, the powerful impression made on him by people who are either at peace or full of “bitterness and regrets” as they approach death, his realization that his most important task is to be in the “here and now” with each person—and then to do his best to take this lesson back into his own life.

But why not read the entire short essay, since it’s free? Just click the link above.—JM, senior editor

2016-11-21T13:06:47-05:00August 9th, 2013|patient engagement|1 Comment
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Something Like Grace

By Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular contributor to this blog. Her essay “The Love Song of Frank” was published in the May (2012) issue of AJN.

ViewFromPlaneWindowMark was in town to be the best man in an old friend’s wedding—on a vacation, of sorts—when the unthinkable happened and he was involved in a horrendous traffic accident. He was ejected from his rental car. His injuries were severe and life threatening.

Mark’s family was halfway across the country. Getting to Mark quickly seemed impossible. But this is where the story takes a turn:

Mark’s family found a flight leaving that morning from their local airport, with the exact number of available seats that they needed. As they bought the tickets, they explained the nature of their emergency. They got to the airport in the nick of time. While checking in, they were approached by an airline employee who asked if they’d already arranged a rental car. They told him that they hadn’t—they hadn’t even stopped to get their clothes.

They didn’t know it at the time, but the employee who’d approached them was the pilot of the plane. He’d learned of the family emergency and held the plane for them. He knew how serious Mark’s accident had been, as he’d happened to drive right past the accident scene on his way to the airport before the first leg of the flight.

When the plane landed, the pilot requested that Mark’s family […]

2016-11-21T13:06:57-05:00July 22nd, 2013|nursing perspective, Patients|4 Comments
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Who Will Watch the Watchers? Consider Nurses

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

Sometimes my surgical mask feels like a gag/by Julianna Paradisi Sometimes my surgical mask feels like a gag/by Julianna Paradisi

Does anyone else find it ironic that, while the National Security Agency (NSA) is seeking to extradite and prosecute the contractor who revealed the agency’s alleged widespread spying on ordinary Americans and visitors from other countries, nurses can get fired for far more local breaches of privacy?

When the government gives 500,000 private contractors access to data hoards compiled from the electronic and phone conversations of U.S. citizens, is HIPAA still relevant?

Two years ago, the nurse blogosphere raged over the expulsion of three nursing students for posting the photo of a placenta on Facebook. Today, in light of the NSA’s potentially far-reaching privacy violations, the decidedly insensitive exploits of those students seem a bit less newsworthy.

More famously, the ordeal of Vickilyn Galle and Anne Mitchell, nurses who were fired after they blew the whistle on medical malpractice while exposing a conflict of interest affecting patient safety within the hospital, illustrates the high accountability placed upon nurses to protect patient privacy. […]

2016-11-21T13:06:59-05:00July 17th, 2013|Ethics, Nursing, Patients|2 Comments
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Obesity as Disease and the Health Care Culture’s Take on Personal Responsibility and Suffering

Doug OlsenBy Doug Olsen, PhD, RN, associate professor, Michigan State University College of Nursing, and AJN contributing editor. Olsen regularly addresses topics related to nursing ethics. His most recent article for AJN was “Helping Patients Who Don’t Help Themselves” (July issue; free until August 15).

Why does the American Medical Association’s recognition of obesity as a disease (AMA, 2013) stir strong feelings? People are just as heavy as before, their health is suffering as much, and the therapies for obesity remain the same. The main difference is that the label may give clinicians a better rationale to seek reimbursement for obesity-related services, which might help increase treatment rates. No one yet knows if the new label will really have an effect on treatment rates; in any case, this is not what people are concerned about.

The issue is what labeling a health problem with a behavioral component as a “disease” implies about personal responsibility—or what people think it means. How does personal responsibility relate to individual suffering?

The relationship between decision making, suffering, and personal responsibility is at the heart of bioethics as it is practiced in the United States. But bioethics didn’t invent our cultural tendency to connect personal responsibility and sympathetic regard for suffering, and our current approach to the issue was developed through […]

2017-04-03T12:12:36-04:00July 11th, 2013|Ethics, patient engagement, Public health|0 Comments
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Incomplete Combustion: Crohn’s, Motherhood, a New Normal

April Gibson is an essayist, poet, and ostomate. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Chicago State University. In her writing she seeks to address and renegotiate societal beliefs about motherhood, illness as alienation, beauty as a shell. Her work is published or forthcoming in Tidal Basin Review, Reverie, The New Sound, Aunt Chloe, AsUs and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago with her two sons. 

AprilGibsonTwenty-one days pass. I am a 90-pound bag of skin. Legs like peanut butter drapes thrown over femur bones, no muscle, no pronounced curve. A lover would look past me quickly in the street. I do not want these scars, or this strange body. I want to wear a red bikini. I want a kiss on my belly.

Three weeks felt like spans of small forevers. I didn’t believe my legs and arms were mine. My abdomen sunk to a cave, save for the rustling bag. My aunt hurled the word “unconscionable” on each visit, until the hospital knew her voice. My mother, grandmother, aunts, they stayed in mornings, my little brother stayed through late nights, nodding off once the drugs snatched my eyes to sleep. So many people, one could’ve mistaken my bed for a box. I can’t remember them all, or even all the days.

The nurses were there everyday, same ones. This is their wing. The doctors came […]

2016-11-21T13:07:18-05:00June 14th, 2013|Nursing, patient experience, Patients|10 Comments
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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.
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