Off the Charts

Does Everything Happen for a Reason? One Oncology Nurse’s Perspective

Does Nature Argue Fate? The Acorn Contains The Tree/
charcoal, pastel, and ink on paper/ Julianna Paradisi 2019

The human need to find meaning.

“Everything happens for a reason” is a saying I hear a lot in my nursing practice, from patients and coworkers alike.

The need to find meaning in the events of our lives, good or bad, appears to be a distinctively human trait. Ancient Greeks believed Clotho, one of the Three Fates, spun the lives of humans. In medieval times, Anglo-Saxons may have believed in wyrd, a concept similar to fate in our modern language. Elsewhere, the idea of karma teaches a cause and effect perspective on this life, and on future lives. These are only a few examples.

Learning to ask ‘why’ as a pediatric ICU nurse.

I began questioning if everything happens for a reason as a pediatric intensive care nurse at the beginning of my career. Asking “why?” is a natural response to watching a child suffer. Why is a baby born without a functional left ventricle? Why does an infant contract leukemia or a brain tumor?

Certainly genetics or environmental factors cause some cases. Regardless, it’s difficult […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2019-06-27T09:53:05-04:00June 27th, 2019|Nursing, nursing stories, patient experience, Patients|1 Comment

Welcome to Nursing’s New Grads!

Nervous and excited is normal.

It’s late June and by now most new grads are beginning their careers. Based on tradition, most of you will be working in the acute care setting. Some may have found positions, like my niece did when she graduated, in out-of-hospital surgical centers, or perhaps you’ve taken a position in a nursing home or long-term care facility. Wherever you’ve landed, we know you’re likely to be a mix of nervous and excited.

First, don’t worry—everyone, even the nurse manager who scares you, was new once. Over time, you’ll get more comfortable with your skills and gain confidence.

Photo by Ashley Gilbertson / The New York Times / Redux.

The basics.

Be prepared, show up on time, ask questions; be the person you’d like to work with. Offer to help others when you can and you’ll find it easier to ask when you need a hand.

One of our younger editorial board members, Amanda Anderson, has written several articles for our Transition to Practice column, all aimed at recent nursing school graduates. The articles range from preparing for the first day on the job to delegating and how to give report, and other topics. The latest, “Surviving […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2019-06-25T09:52:50-04:00June 25th, 2019|Nursing|1 Comment

July Issue: Implicit Bias in Nursing, Grief Support for Hospital Staff, Understanding Malpractice, More

“Get to know patients’ former selves. Ask different questions. Discover their answers. I am so glad I did.” —Jennifer Chicca, author of the July Reflections column, “What Joanna Would Have Wanted”

The July issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

CE: Original Research: Helping Health Care Providers and Staff Process Grief Through a Hospital-Based Program

This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of offering an intensive bereavement support program—aimed at addressing grief and loss related to both professional and personal experiences—to hospital employees in a large health system.

CE: Addressing Implicit Bias in Nursing: A Review

This article describes the ways that implicit, or unconscious, bias among health care providers can contribute to health care disparities, and offers strategies nurses can use to discover and overcome their own implicit biases.

Special Feature: Rising to the Challenge: Re-Embracing the Wald Model of Nursing

The author discusses how Lillian Wald’s model of health care, in which nurses work at the intersection of medicine and society, may be useful today as nurses seek to address diseases of despair and improve health equity.

Transition to Practice: Surviving Your First Code

This article prepares new nurses for their first code, describes what happens during a code, and reviews the responsibilities of the resuscitation team.

The Complex Working Relationships Between National and Expatriate RNs on Humanitarian Missions

Photo via Flickr / Andrew Smith

Each summer, many nurses and nursing students join humanitarian aid missions, traveling to countries where health resources are scarce in order to work in medical clinics, on surgical teams, or as part of a public health brigade to serve impoverished communities. They work alongside local health workers, often under crisis conditions. We tend to take for granted that there are no downsides to these efforts. But how do local nurses feel about working with (and usually under the supervision of) nurses from other countries?

In 2014, nurse Debbie Wilson worked in an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia. It wasn’t her first overseas medical mission. But under the particularly intense conditions of the deadly Ebola outbreak, she worked very closely with the Liberian nurses in the unit—nurses whose own family members, friends, and coworkers had died of the disease. (Read about Wilson’s experience here.) Over time, these nurses shared with Wilson their stories of positive and negative experiences working with other expatriate nurses in the center.

Since that deployment, Wilson has teamed up with her Liberian colleague Darlington S. Jallah to formally explore the working relationship between expats and local nurses. They share their findings in Exploring Working Relationships Between National and Expatriate RNs on Humanitarian Aid Missions: The Perspectives of Liberian Nurses in the June issue of AJN.

Wilson and Jallah led focus groups with Liberian […]

Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2019-06-19T10:54:55-04:00June 19th, 2019|Nursing|2 Comments

‘Worth Its Weight in Gold’: The Small, Unexpected Triumphs of Nursing

“Nursing is a job that sometimes finds you investing emotionally in things you never expected to care about.”

How many times have you waxed enthusiastic at work about something that people who aren’t nurses would find weird, or even downright gross? Eyeing a patient’s Foley bag and exclaiming about how great her urine looks…praising a young man for coughing up gobs of sticky sputum….

Illustration by Pat Kinsella for AJN.

The challenge of obtaining a specimen.

In this month’s Reflections column, “Worth its Weight in Gold” (free until July 7), visiting nurse Jonathan Robb describes his efforts to obtain a urine sample for culture from an elderly woman who has minimal bladder control.

Most of us are familiar with the balancing act of obtaining a specimen under conditions that cause discomfort or embarrassment to a patient. We cajole and gently press for whatever has to be done, trying to maintain a relaxed atmosphere while hiding any urgency about completing the task that we might feel. This delicate pas de deux has the potential to be very stressful for both parties.

Robb’s sometimes comical descriptions of the contortions necessary to meet his particular challenge will ring true to nurses.

“…despite the […]

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Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2019-06-17T10:16:20-04:00June 17th, 2019|Nursing, nursing stories, patient engagement|0 Comments