“As an ICU nurse, I have vivid impressions of the adrenaline-pumping moments of a code blue. Now, after being an ICU patient who experienced a code purple, I still more vividly remember the caring nurse who calmly made me feel like a human being . . .”—Alison Cusmano in her December Reflections essay, “Shift Change: From ICU Nurse to ICU Patient”
The December issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.
Guest Editorial: A Tribute to Dr. Fauci
A nurse honors her husband’s legacy as he retires from a nearly six-decade career in public health.
Original Research: TikTok’s ‘Dancing Nurses’ During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Content Analysis
The authors examine the use of TikTok by nurses who incorporate dance into their videos—with a focus on understanding how nurses’ use of social media might be violating professional ethical standards.
CE: HIV-Associated Kaposi Sarcoma in the Combination Antiretroviral Therapy Era
This article provides an update on the incidence, characteristics, and management of Kaposi sarcoma, and outlines nursing considerations in the care of people living with HIV who have the disease.
Supporting Family Caregivers: No Longer Home Alone: Assessing Pain in Older Adults
This article—part of a series published in collaboration with the AARP Public Policy Institute—discusses how nurses can teach family caregivers to recognize and document the care recipient’s pain at home in order to optimize pain treatment and outcomes.
In the Community: A Nursing School on Reservation Land
The authors describe the creation of the Grow Our Own associate degree in nursing program at the tribal college of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana, an example of how to increase diversity in nursing and potentially improve the health outcomes of the Native Americans living on and nearby reservation communities.
There’s much more in our December issue, including:
- A Viewpoint on the need for equitable hair care in hospitals.
- An AJN Reports on the recent rise in labor actions by nurses, including protests and work stoppages.
- A Nurse Innovators column on a nurse who created a wearable medical device that supports patients with catheter drainage leg bags.
Click here to browse the table of contents and explore the issue on our website.
A note on the cover.
This month’s cover features Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Chief Medical Advisor to the President, who is retiring at the end of December. Read editor-in-chief Carl Kirton’s thoughts on Dr. Fauci, as well as an essay by nurse Carole Treston on his transformative impact during the early days of the AIDS crisis.
Disappointed that the face or faces of our life changing nurses are not on the cover. They are the hero’s! Celebrate them!
I have rarely seen such a poor excuse for “research” as this “study” of “dancing nurses” TikTok videos. First, the authors’ bias is abundantly clear (the purpose of the study was to determine if by appearing in these the nurses “might be violating professional ethical standards”). Second, the attempts to tie promulgation of health misinformation on COVID to “twerking” in some way fail as soon they point out the lack of COVID-related content in the videos. Third, the descriptions of the nurses’ bodies in action are reminiscent of centuries-old hand-wringing over revealing clothing as a proxy for immoral or unethical practices. Early nurses were required to dress modestly, be unmarried (proxy for virginal), and have impeccable societal references; this study harkens back to those ancient attitudes and calls for cuing the church ladies’ pearl-clutching. Fourth, trying to cram this all into the ANA standards to justify this “report” strains credibility rather than reinforcing it. I was laughing out loud by the end.
Please don’t do this again. It’s this kind of weak scholarship that makes nursing look bad, not “dancing nurses” on their day off.