The Essence of Nursing Care: A Powerful Tribute for Nurses Week

“Frontline nurses, as the health professionals who spend the most time with patients and their families, are central to ensuring that the patient experience is a positive and dignified one.”

Susan Hassmiller

This sentence from “The Essence of Nursing Care,” a guest editorial in the May issue of AJN, isn’t just rhetoric. It’s based on a recent and unforgettable personal experience of the power nurses have to recognize and sometimes ease a family member’s suffering at the very worst of times.

In this moving editorial, Susan Hassmiller, the senior advisor for nursing at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, writes about the nurses who helped her in the terrible days following her husband Bob’s tragic bicycle accident last fall. Writes Hassmiller:

“My life changed forever on Sunday, September 25, 2016, at 11:09 am. . . .That’s when I learned that Bob, my best friend and husband of 37 years, lay paralyzed in the trauma unit of a nearby hospital . . . .During those 10 brutal days, I learned anew the crucial role that nurses play in caregiving and compassion. Three nurses stood out in particular.”

I won’t attempt to summarize the rest of this guest editorial. It’s as eloquent a tribute as nurses are likely to get this year on Nurses Week. The article is free, so […]

2017-05-08T10:15:48-04:00May 8th, 2017|Nursing|1 Comment
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Nurses, What’s Your ‘Elevator Speech’?

“We need to value ourselves—what we do, all that we know, how we change lives. If we don’t own and value our worth, no one else will.”

It’s always nice to write about some good things happening, and this week there are two that gave me a lift.

First, an award: The American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors (ASHPE) recently named this blog the winner of the 2017 gold ASHPE award for best blog. I’m pleased that the hard work by blog editor Jacob Molyneux and the AJN editors and authors who contribute to the blog was recognized. AJN also received a gold award for best cover illustration for our October 2016 political cartoon cover, a silver award for best peer-reviewed journal, and a bronze award for best news coverage. I’m thankful every day that I work with such talented people. They’re committed to upholding AJN’s reputation and mission:

to promote excellence in nursing and health care through the dissemination of evidence-based, peer-reviewed clinical information and original research, discussion of relevant and controversial professional issues, adherence to the standards of journalistic integrity and excellence, and promotion of nursing perspectives to the health care community and the public.

Second, it’s time for Nurses Week: This Saturday begins Nurses Week (May 6-12), the last day of which always marks the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday (May 12, 1820). Nurses Week is a period […]

2017-05-05T10:13:36-04:00May 5th, 2017|Nursing|2 Comments
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Report Draws Attention to Nurse Burnout, Seeks to Restore Joy to Profession

AJN has been asked to share with our readers a new report on nurse burnout: “A Gold Bond to Restore Joy to Nursing: A Collaborative Exchange of Ideas to Address Burnout” (pdf). The report is the result of a November 2016 retreat of leading thinkers in health care and nursing at the Johnson Foundation’s Wingspread campus in Racine, Wisconsin.

Among conference participants well known to AJN were Cynda Rushton, professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and Berman Institute of Bioethics, and noted author and nurse Theresa Brown.

The post below detailing the report’s findings is by Cindy Richards of QPatient Insight, the consulting firm that organized the conference. An experienced journalist, she worked closely with conference attendees to prepare the report on the conference’s findings.

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We often hear that America faces a nursing shortage—the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics said in 2015 that we would need 1.2 million more registered nurses by 2024. In addition, surveys of nurses continue to find high levels of job dissatisfaction and high percentages of nurses who express an intention to change jobs or leave the profession in the coming years.

Why? In too many cases, because they are overwhelmed by demands that get in […]

2017-05-03T11:40:29-04:00May 3rd, 2017|Nursing|5 Comments
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Parents as Mentors: Observations of a Peds/NICU Nurse

By Jody Holland, MN, RN, neonatal ICU and pediatrics, St. Charles Medical Center, Bend, Oregon

The strength of parents.

Hospital, by boliston / via Flickr

We have all had and need mentors at some time in our career. The most influential mentors to me have been the parents of the infants and children who have been placed in my care. Parents do not ask for their child to be born early or develop a devastating illness, but these parents summon great strength when it’s needed.

I have countless memories of episodes that have made me pause and reflect on the courage and resolve of parents. I remember a family who stood by their child during a resuscitation and were an integral part of the decision-making process to end the resuscitation. This was long before research documented the benefits of this type of parental involvement.

Or the time when the parents of a child with a devastating head injury fulfilled their promise to their child to get married. In addition, the child also wanted to be the flower girl. They were married at their child’s bedside. The ICU staff followed their wishes and dressed the girl in an outfit of their choosing, placed flowers in her hair, and made a bouquet. The ceremony went off without a hitch—and I believe it […]

2017-05-01T09:29:17-04:00May 1st, 2017|Nursing|0 Comments
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AJN in May: Venous Thromboembolism Update, Deep Tissue Pressure Injury Review, Much More

The May issue of AJN is now live. Here are some articles we’d like to bring to your attention.

CE Feature: Original Research: Creating an Evidence-Based Progression for Clinical Advancement Programs

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) project have identified six nursing competencies and supported their integration into undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula nationwide. But integration of those competencies into clinical practice has been limited, and evidence for the progression of competency proficiency within clinical advancement programs is scant. Building on the competencies identified by the IOM and QSEN, the authors of this study developed eight nursing competency domains and 186 related knowledge, skills, and attitudes for professional nursing practice, then sought to validate them and to determine their developmental progression within a clinical advancement program.

CE Feature: Venous Thromboembolism: Updated Management Guidelines

Each year, as many as 900,000 cases of venous thromboembolism occur in the United States; between 100,000 and 300,000 cases end in death. This article presents an overview of venous thromboembolism—including its pathophysiology, risk factors, symptoms, and key clinical assessments—plus a review of recommendations from an updated American College of Chest Physicians guideline related to treatment options, nursing practice, patient education, diagnostic testing, and more.

2017-04-28T09:09:57-04:00April 28th, 2017|Nursing|0 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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