The Best Nurses Day Gift: Enough Time With Patients

What's Left Behind, oil, graphite, and mixed media on wood panel. 18" by 18." Copyright J. Paradisi. What’s Left Behind, oil, graphite, and mixed media on wood panel. 18″ by 18.” Copyright J. Paradisi.

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

I can’t remember which handle on Twitter asked nurses last week for their stories about the best or worst Nurses Day gifts from their employers, so I will tell mine here. It began badly, but became the best.

Nurses Day in May is a cute little rhyme. In Oregon, where I live, May also brings hay fever allergy, which is neither cute nor rhymes, but like Nurses Day, is an annual event.

I woke up on the morning of Nurses Day with a headache and my voice hoarse from allergy. Previously, I had traded shifts to work this day in place of another nurse with an acutely hospitalized family member. If she and I were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, her need was scissors to my paper.

Calling in sick was not an option. It’s part of the unwritten Nurse’s Code, which is really more of a guideline, but don’t test it. Calling in sick after agreeing to work for a coworker will not garner sympathy from your unit.

When I arrived for work, another nurse remarked that my hoarse voice sounded sexy, like actress Kathleen Turner’s. Despite my crankiness from inadequate respiratory gas […]

2016-11-21T13:07:32-05:00May 22nd, 2013|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, patient experience, Patients|2 Comments
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When Nurse-Patient Boundaries Blur, in Fact or Fiction

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. She currently has an essay appearing in The Examined Life Journal.

Courtesy of the author Courtesy of the author

Professional boundaries, as defined by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), are “the spaces between the nurse’s power and the patient’s vulnerability.” The NCSBN describes the nurse–patient relationship as a continuum, with “too little care provider involvement” at one end and “too much care provider involvement” on the other.

The ideal therapeutic nurse–patient relationship lies in the middle, with “no definite lines separating the zone of helpfulness from the ends of the continuum.” I don’t love the indeterminate nature of that definition, but I understand it.

Some time ago, I was surprised by a friendship that developed between a patient and me. It was an unusual circumstance, in that the patient was in the ICU for a very long time for chronic problems that didn’t affect his mental capacity. I was his nurse many times, and through idle chatter during routine care we discovered not only a shared appreciation of literature in general, but a fondness for many of the same authors and books. I started thinking of books I’d bring him, hoping to augment the tedium of his hospital stay. At some point, I started thinking […]

2016-11-21T13:08:04-05:00March 15th, 2013|Ethics, nursing perspective, Patients|7 Comments
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‘Patient Activation’: Real Paradigm Shift or Updated Jargon?

By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

I attended a Health Affairs briefing yesterday in Washington, DC. Based on the February issue of the journal, it was called “A New Era of Patient Engagement.” A lot of research money appears to have been flowing to this area in recent years.

Our January article on "Navigating the PSA Screening Dilemma" includes a discussion of 'shared decision making' Our January article on “Navigating the PSA Screening Dilemma” includes a discussion of ‘shared decision making’

The basic idea isn’t entirely new to anyone who’s been hearing the term “patient-centered care” for a long time: as Susan Dentzer writes in “Rx for the ‘Blockbuster Drug’ of Patient Engagement,” a useful article summarizing the main ideas raised in the Health Affairs issue: “Wherever engagement takes place, the emerging evidence is that patients who are actively involved in their health and health care achieve better health outcomes, and have lower health costs, than those who aren’t.”

One might add to these projected benefits: better experiences as patients.

Something’s got to change, so why not this? If many nurses feel they’ve heard all this before, the sense of a health care system in necessary flux is […]

2016-11-21T13:08:20-05:00February 7th, 2013|nursing perspective, patient engagement, Patients, personal health practices|1 Comment
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Fear of Violence: A Poor Rationale for Better Mental Health Care

Insulin shock therapy is given in Lapinlahti Hospital, Helsinki in 1950s (Wikimedia) Insulin shock therapy is given in Lapinlahti Hospital, Helsinki in 1950s (Wikimedia)

By Doug Olsen, PhD, RN, associate professor, Michigan State University College of Nursing, and AJN contributing editor. Olsen regularly addresses topics related to nursing ethics.

There are many good reasons to provide better mental health care in the United States; however, the prevention of mass murder is not one of them.

Mental disorders involve great suffering, and many people who could find some relief through treatment either don’t receive it in a timely fashion or never receive it at all. After the large psychiatric hospitals of the mid-20th century discharged their patients in waves of deinstitutionalization starting in the 1970s, many of the resources that were promised to support these people in the community never materialized. In recent decades, many persons with mental disorder have ended up in the prison system, often for minor offenses, where treatment, if received at all, can be harsh and inadequate. (See: Early, P. (2006). Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness). A

Adequate resources to support all persons with serious and persistent mental illness in the community would prevent and alleviate a tremendous amount […]

2016-11-21T13:08:34-05:00January 11th, 2013|Ethics, Nursing, Patients, safe staffing|1 Comment
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The Depression Project

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. She currently has an essay appearing in The Examined Life Journal.

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons

Lately, as a long-time runner, I can’t help but draw parallels between working on a nursing research project and training for a distance race set far in the future. Especially in the middle of a long run, when frazzled edges smooth out and clarity settles over me, the similarities between the two are striking. Both require inspiration and a goal, fluid planning and accommodation for the unexpected, and patience.

I casually refer to the nursing research project I’m involved in as “The Depression Project.” It was borne of concern among the ICU nurses about the mental states of the trauma patients in our unit. As the bedside care providers, we often come to know our patients very well; we don’t just care for these people, we sincerely care, and so we’re troubled when we observe, time and again, trauma patients who seem to lose the motivation to engage in their recoveries. They become flat and despondent; they lose hope.

It’s clear to the nurses that while the physical injuries sustained present enormous challenges, the emotional toll is sometimes just as debilitating—yet underestimated. And so we devised a study to illustrate the correlation of depression and recovery.

It’s […]

2016-11-21T13:08:35-05:00January 9th, 2013|career, Nursing, nursing research, patient experience, Patients|4 Comments
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