By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor/blog editor

Scanning electron micrograph of filamentous Ebola virus particles budding from an infected VERO E6 cell (35,000x magnification). Credit: NIAID

Filamentous Ebola virus particles budding from an infected VERO E6 cell (35,000x magnification). Credit: NIAID

It’s unsurprising that some of our top blog posts this past year were about Ebola virus disease. But it’s worth noting that our clinical editor Betsy Todd, who is also an epidemiologist, cut through the misinformation and noise about Ebola very early on—at a time when many thoughtful people still seemed ill informed about the illness and its likely spread in the U.S.

Ebola is scary in itself, but fear was also spread by media coverage, some politicians, and, for a while, a tone-deaf CDC too reliant on absolutes in its attempts to reassure the public.

While the most dire predictions have not come true here in the U.S., it’s also true that a lot of work has gone into keeping Ebola from getting a foothold. A lot of people in health care have put themselves at risk to make this happen, doing so at first in an atmosphere of radical uncertainty about possible modes of transmission (uncertainty stoked in part by successive explanations offered as to how the nurses treating Thomas Eric Duncan at a Dallas hospital might have become infected).

And while, relative to the situation in Africa, a lot of knowledge and resources were readily available to support nurses and physicians who treated Ebola patients, the crisis has focused much-needed attention on the quality of the personal protective equipment (PPE) hospitals have been providing to health care workers.

Meanwhile, the suffering continues in Sierra Leone and other countries. Time magazine this week made the Ebola fighters here and overseas its collective Person of the Year for 2014. (See our recent post by Debbie Wilson, a Massachusetts nurse who worked in an Ebola treatment center in Liberia this fall. She will be visiting our offices next week for lunch with the staff.)

Some of our other most popular posts this past year dealt with workplace and career issues. And there are many other excellent posts not on this list. Thanks to all of our writers and readers.

  1. Ebola: A Nurse Epidemiologist Puts the Outbreak in Perspective
  2. Addressing Nurses’ Urgent Concerns About Ebola and Protective Equipment
  3. New Nurses Face Reality Shock in Hospital Settings – So What Else is New?
  4. When the Preceptor’s Attitude Is a New Nurse’s Biggest Challenge
  5. MERS: A Lucid Overview of What Nurses Need to Know
  6. Marijuana Legalization and Potential Workplace Pitfalls for Nurses Who Partake
  7. How a Busy Hospital Reduced Its Rate of Hospital-Acquired Pressure Ulcers to Zero
  8. The Heart of a Nurse
  9. 10 Good Things About Being an Older Nurse
  10. Essentials for New Clinical Nursing Instructors, Especially Adjuncts

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