The End of Summer Is Nearly Here: Use Those Vacations

Every July 4th at the end of the day, a friend used to say, “Well, summer is almost over.” And summer did seem to fly by in a blink after that day. Now here we are again, putting the summer of 2018 to bed as we face Labor Day weekend. This last chance at summer always seems a little sad. It’s the marker of so many things—the end of lifeguards at the beach, the last chance to get school supplies, the beginning of another school year. (That includes nursing school. Here’s some good advice for new nursing students that we collected a while back from our readers.)

Like many others, I recently spent a week on vacation with family. It took some doing to get things organized and some working ahead to meet deadlines, but it was worth it. As a manager, there’s no one to keep certain things moving while you’re gone. So the week leading up to vacation is a frenzied time, organizing and working ahead to cover deadlines, and getting ready to leave. Then, once back, there’s another frenzied time to try to catch up. My strategy is to check email once a day while on vacation. It keeps what I have to deal […]

2018-08-31T07:59:34-04:00August 31st, 2018|Nursing, nursing career, wellness|0 Comments
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September Issue: The Risks of Too Much Sitting, Stable COPD, Antidepressant Medications, More

“As a pediatric nurse working with medically fragile children, I have noticed a fault in others that I have only recently been able to work on in myself—the one thing worse than staring at a child with an obvious disability is to conspicuously pretend we don’t notice the child at all.” —Lindsey van Gennep, author of this month’s Viewpoint article, “Afraid to Notice: On Responding to Children with Visible Disabilities”

The September issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: Too Much Sitting: A Newly Recognized Health Risk

This integrative literature review examines compelling evidence that overall daily sitting time—regardless of whether a person engages in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity—may be an independent health risk for cardiometabolic health conditions, certain cancers, and all-cause mortality. It also reveals new insights into high-volume sitting (seven or more hours a day) and prolonged uninterrupted sitting (30 minutes or more) and their relationship to adverse health outcomes.

CE: Managing Stable COPD: An Evidence-Based Approach

The authors describe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) risk factors, clinical manifestations, and diagnostic testing, and discuss how to put the revised Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease recommendations into […]

2018-08-29T09:41:40-04:00August 29th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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For One Nurse, the Heroin Crisis Hits Too Close to Home

Illustration by Gingermoth.

The abundance of cheap, potent street drugs like heroin and fentanyl continue to cause record overdose numbers. This ongoing crisis struck close to home for the nurse who’s the author of our August Reflections essay. When her nephew ended up in the hospital, she found herself, as a family member, “on the wrong side of” the situation:

“This happened to other people’s families, not mine. I was supposed to be reading the monitors and titrating the drips. I was supposed to be taking care of the patient.”

With the support of nurses.

The author, in her dual role as nurse and sister of the young man’s father, must at times walk a fine line between these roles. And so she’s grateful for the help of the nurses whose presence sees the author’s family through what can’t be seen through. They quietly minister to their patient and those most concerned with his fate. Their sensitivity and professionalism offer them a profound support. […]

2018-08-27T07:33:23-04:00August 27th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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In Nursing, Some Things Never Change: Shift Report, 1985

Several days ago, we published “A Day in the Emergency Room for a Nurse Who Loves Her Job.” It gave an engaging, sometimes moving account of one nurse’s experience of a normal/stressful day in the ER. As it happens, colleague Theresa Stephany recently sent me the bare bones report we’re sharing today—an actual shift report from 1985. She received the copy many years ago from a friend who worked the night shift at a local hospital, and who had typed and sent it to her manager at the end of the shift. Stephany wrote to me that she “kept it all these years because it’s so horrible that it’s poignant.”

I’m sure that poor nurse was exhausted. Anyone have a shift story to tell, nightmare or otherwise?

SHIFT REPORT, 1985

TO: DIRECTOR OF NURSES
FROM: HEAD NURSE 2ND MAIN
SUBJECT: ACTIVITY RECORD, 11-7 SHIFT, 9/8/85                

Memorandum:

  1. 12 patients in restraints, 2 in leathers, acquired during the night.
  2. 3 Foley catheters pulled out
  3. 1 chest tube inserted with 1300 cc’s pus out
  4. 2 temperatures over 103°
  5. 3 Temperatures over 102°
  6. 7 Temperatures over 101°
  7. 3 patients having DT’s
  8. 3 Patients having chest pain
  9. 3 patients having respiratory distress
  10. Approximately 50 “now” or “stat” orders during the shift
  11. Several chest x-rays done (staff to deliver to x-ray and return)
  12. 2 beds had to be moved to make room for a sitter patient
  13. […]
2018-08-23T10:49:13-04:00August 23rd, 2018|Nursing, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Suicide Among Nurses: Poorly Documented and Unacknowledged

Photo © Wavebreakmedia Ltd UC25/ Alamy Stock Photo

When we all worked eight-hour shifts, “my” shift was evenings. Most nights I reported off to the same night nurse, a woman about my age who was an excellent nurse and also simply a nice person to be with. One evening I came to work to learn that my new friend would not be at work for a while. She had tried to kill herself.

A surprising lack of suicide data for nurses.

Did you know that there are national data on the suicide rates of physicians, teachers, police officers, firefighters, and military personnel, but none pertaining to suicides of nurses? Or that many hospitals have long offered screening for suicide risk to medical staff and medical students, but not to nurses? The lead news story in this month’s AJN, “Suicide Among Nurses,” highlights these and other findings of a recent National Academy of Medicine discussion paper, “Nurse Suicide: Breaking the Silence.”

Many reasons for this silence.

Judy Davidson, a nurse scientist at the University of California San Diego and the lead author of this paper, points out that there are many reasons for the silence around this issue. She notes that suicide data in general […]

2018-08-20T09:32:01-04:00August 20th, 2018|Nursing|2 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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