A Nurses’ Week Visit with Theresa Brown

Nurse and author Theresa Brown Nurse and author Theresa Brown

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week, I had the pleasure of chatting with nurse Theresa Brown (you can listen to our conversation here). Brown writes AJN’s quarterly What I’m Reading column. (This month, she writes about Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.)

Theresa Brown also blogs for the New York Times and is the author of The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives, which I first wrote about when it was released last July. As I noted then, it’s probably the first book I’ve read that really captures certain elements of nurses’ work:

Anyone who wants to know what it’s like to be a nurse in a hospital today should read this book. Patients, families, and non-nurse colleagues tend to see nurses as ever-present yet often in the background, quietly moving from room to room, attending to patients, and distributing medications or charting at computers.

But what they don’t understand about what nurses do is what Brown so deftly describes—the cognitive multitasking and constant reordering of priorities that occur in the course of one shift as Brown manages the needs of four very different patients (she was working in a stem cell transplant unit at the time); completes admissions and discharges; and communicates […]

2016-11-21T13:01:14-05:00May 4th, 2016|Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing stories, patient experience|2 Comments
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Just Breathe: A Nurse’s Tough Love Proves Crucial During One Mother’s Labor

Photo by chintermeyer, via Flickr. 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 […]

2016-11-21T13:01:25-05:00March 2nd, 2016|nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|0 Comments
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Nursing Reads: A Powerful New Novel Evokes Diverse Perspectives on an Organ Transplant

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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 […]

2016-11-21T13:01:25-05:00February 29th, 2016|Nursing, nursing perspective, patient experience|0 Comments
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Ethical Practice with Patients in Pain

Photo @ AJ Photo / Hop Americain / Science Photo Library Photo @ AJ Photo / Hop Americain / Science Photo Library

Pain is difficult to define and hard to convey. The way both patients and clinicians respond to it can be influenced by a multitude of possible biases. This month’s Ethical Issues column in AJN is by Doug Olsen, PhD, RN, an associate professor at Michigan State University College of Nursing. In “Ethical Practice with Patients in Pain,” Olsen summarizes the challenge nurses and other clinicians face in treating patients’ pain:

Responding to a patient’s pain is a fundamental ethical obligation in nursing. However, nurses caring for patients in pain can run into ethical conflicts from both over- and undertreatment of pain. Undertreatment of pain represents a failure to fulfill the core nursing obligation to alleviate suffering—but overtreatment may ultimately harm the patient, contradicting a core nursing value, nonmaleficence. The complex nature of pain complicates efforts to provide treatment that is ‘just right.’ Nurses must understand that complexity if they are to make ethical decisions in the care of patients who experience pain.

[…]

2016-11-21T13:01:32-05:00January 20th, 2016|Ethics, Nursing, nursing perspective, pain management, patient experience|1 Comment
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‘I’m Worried About People in Pain’: A Nurse’s Take on Opioid-Prescribing Regulation Changes

by frankieleon/ via flickr by frankieleon/ via flickr

Many patients and clinicians have strong feelings about opioids: they’ve seen a loved one denied adequate pain control, or they’ve seen a family member or friend’s son or daughter lost to prescription pill and/or heroin addiction, or they’ve worked in an ED with too many drug-seeking patients, or they’ve seen a patient in terrible pain waiting for a new analgesic order from an unavailable or uncompassionate physician.

But feelings don’t solve complex problems, and an excessively punitive or permissive approach can do more damage than good. Recently, there have been almost daily headlines and policy recommendations about the importance of restricting opioid-prescribing practices. The trend is alarming a number of clinicians with expertise in working with patients in pain. Clinical nurse specialist and pain management consultant Carol Curtiss addresses what’s at stake in “I’m Worried About People in Pain,” the Viewpoint essay in the January issue of AJN:

According to a 2011 Institute of Medicine report, chronic pain is a public health crisis . . . Well-intended efforts to address prescription drug abuse—another public health crisis—may place heavy burdens on people with pain who benefit from opioids and use them responsibly as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. . . . Gains made in pain treatment are at risk. New regulations threaten access […]

2016-11-21T13:01:34-05:00January 12th, 2016|Ethics, nursing perspective, pain management, patient experience, Patients|3 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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