A Nurse and Mother on Dialing Back the Risk in Football

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP-C, AJN clinical managing editor

One Monday afternoon when my son Bryan was a senior in high school I got a call from him. He had hurt his back during football practice and was in so much pain he couldn’t move to get into his car. I rushed over to the field and found him standing, tense and still. When I lifted his shirt to look at his back, I gasped. The entire lumbar area was rounded and swollen out to the size of a grapefruit. At the hospital tests revealed he had a large hematoma, no critical damage done. The first question Bryan had for the doctor—“Can I play on Saturday?”

All week he insisted he could play and I insisted he couldn’t. His arguments never let up—he was quarterback and Saturday’s game was with an archrival. There wasn’t time for the backup quarterback to learn the plays, his team depended on him. Finally I made a bargain. We would go see his physician, whose judgment I trusted, and we would both respect his opinion, whichever way it went.

He played. One of the coaches wrapped his back in layers of padding with an ACE bandage and out he went. It was a brutal game. As determined as he was, the pain still slowed […]

2016-11-21T13:09:20-05:00September 14th, 2012|nursing perspective, Public health|1 Comment
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Michelle Obama: Health Care Reform the ‘Right Thing to Do’

The full transcript of Michelle Obama’s moving convention speech can be found here.

Here she is on making difficult decisions:

“But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as President, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.”

On health care reform:

“When it comes to the health of our families, Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day, another president. He didn’t care whether it was the easy thing to do politically – that’s not how he was raised – he cared that it was the right thing to do.

He did it because he believes that here in America, our grandparents should be able to afford their medicine…our kids should be able to see a doctor when they’re sick…and no one in this country should ever go broke because of an accident or illness.

And he believes that women are more than capable of making our own choices about our bodies and our health care…that’s what my husband stands for.”

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2016-11-21T13:09:24-05:00September 5th, 2012|health care policy|0 Comments
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Campaign-Inspired Hot Summer Friday Thoughts

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Commuting in and out of Manhattan gives me plenty of time to listen to the radio and of course, with Election Day a mere 90 days away, the presidential campaign offers reporters a lot of fodder for commentary. And of course, the evening papers and television stations—both national and local—augment what’s on the radio all day. Here’s a sampling of health care–related campaign news that I’ve heard and read this week.

According to the Kaiser Foundation’s Health Tracking Poll, July figures show that overall, two thirds of Americans support Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but when it comes to whether their own states should expand programs, support drops to less than half (49%), while 43% want to keep the status quo. Importantly for candidates, “four in 10 Americans say they could still change their minds on the law.”

My take: The failure of the Democrats to adequately explain the reforms, together with the misinformation from the Republicans (death panels—need I say more?), are leaving the public confused.  The winner in November will be the candidate who can convince the voters that the ACA is either good or bad for them on a person level. (And yes, the economy is now the overriding issue, but health care will keep resurfacing as an emotional and “values” issue in the coming months.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–Nevada) accused candidate Mitt Romney of not paying taxes for 10 years while he was […]

2016-11-21T13:09:30-05:00August 10th, 2012|health care policy, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Talking About Death: Not Nice, But Necessary

Photo by Eliza Peyton, via Flickr

By Amy M. Collins, editor

Our recent blog post on “death panels” triggered a memory of my own first real experience with the death of a loved one. It was a little over 10 years ago. I was living overseas when my mother called to tell me my grandfather had liver cancer and had been given maybe a year to live.

The physician had given my family three choices: the aggressive choice, chemo; a less aggressive treatment with an experimental drug that had moderate success; or to let him live out the rest of his numbered days. We chose the middle ground.

At the time I worked in medical publishing and thought I knew everything. Over the weeks that followed I would call home to get progress reports, usually putting my two cents in about what my family should be asking the physician. Finally, when things seemed to be getting worse, I flew home to help.

Nothing could have prepared me for the emaciated man I found sitting up in bed when I went to my grandparents’ house to visit. I hardly recognized my grandfather. It hadn’t been that long, but the cancer had already ravaged him. Despite this, he was cheerful and had high hopes. He didn’t seem […]

2016-11-21T13:09:37-05:00July 25th, 2012|patient engagement, Public health|4 Comments
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About Those Death Panels

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Diana Mason, former editor-in-chief of AJN, wrote a post on July 9 on the JAMA Forum blog that’s well worth reading. In it, she talks about the resurgence of “death panels” rhetoric to stir opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), specifically in relation to the Independent Payment Advisory Boards, which are to issue binding recommendations for controlling costs if Medicare grows too rapidly.

In a nutshell, these boards will determine where to reduce costs. If Congress opposes the plan, it will have to come up with same-size cost cuts if it doesn’t want to institute what the board recommends. The message that opponents of the ACA want the public to hear is that their fates will be determined not by them but by an arbitrary committee.

But IPABs are about reducing costs of programs, not passing judgment on individuals.  (As Mason notes, the death panel rhetoric was “declared the “2009 Lie of the Year” by PolitiFact, a project of the Tampa Bay Times and partner news organizations.”)

People should have conversations about how they wish to be treated in their last moments, but these should occur with loved ones and direct care providers and be supported by the legal system. People shouldn’t have to worry that they will be rushed along to death if they’re not ready—in fact, this seems […]

2018-03-28T10:36:14-04:00July 18th, 2012|health care policy|5 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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