American Journal of Nursing (AJN)

The American Journal of Nursing has been a crucial voice shaping and reflecting the evolution of the nursing profession since 1900. Published monthly in print and online, AJN is considered the profession’s premier journal.

Mission
AJN‘s mission is 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.

Standards
AJN adheres to journalistic standards that require transparency of real and potential conflicts of interests that authors and editors may have. It follows publishing standards set by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; www.icmje.org), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME; www.wame.org), and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE; http://publicationethics.org/).

Submissions
AJN welcomes submissions of evidence-based clinical application papers and descriptions of best clinical practices, original research and QI reports, case studies, narratives, commentaries, and other manuscripts on a variety of clinical and professional topics. The journal also welcomes submissions for its various departments and columns, including artwork and poetry that is relevant to nursing or health care. Guidelines on writing for specific departments—Art of Nursing, Viewpoint, Policy and Politics, and Reflections—are available at http://AJN.edmgr.com.

Visit the AJN homepage to see the latest issue, listen to podcasts, browse the archives, and more. And click here to […]

2023-05-25T12:42:15-04:00April 25th, 2016|Comments Off on American Journal of Nursing (AJN)
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Nursing and Social Media’s Limits: Real Change Requires Moving Beyond Hashtags and Selfies

Karen Roush, PhD, RN, is an assistant professor of nursing at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, and founder of the Scholar’s Voice, which works to strengthen the voice of nursing through writing mentorship for nurses.

by rosmary/via Flickr by rosmary/via Flickr

The recent #ShowMeYourStethoscope media campaign has been hailed as a powerful demonstration of the unified voice of nurses and what it can accomplish.

In case you’re not familiar with the incident that led to the outrage–after a Miss America contestant, Kelley Johnson (Miss Colorado), a registered nurse, delivered a monologue about her work for the talent portion of the yearly pageant while dressed in scrubs and wearing her stethoscope, hosts of the television show The View derided her, with one asking why she had on a “doctor’s stethoscope.”

There was soon a vigorous backlash across social media as nurses posted, blogged, and tweeted photos of themselves with stethoscopes, often adding moving descriptions of the situations where they use them or witty comments illustrating the absurdity of the hosts’ remarks.

I found it a heartening response to disrespect and ignorance. Nurses felt empowered and celebrated the opportunity to show the public what nursing is really about.

But has anything really changed? Yes, The View lost some sponsors and was forced to air an apology (albeit unconvincing […]

2016-11-21T13:01:57-05:00October 2nd, 2015|digital health, healthcare social media, Nursing, nursing perspective|8 Comments
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AJN in August: Oral Histories of African Nurses, Opioid Abuse, Misplaced Enteral Tubes, More

AJN0815.Cover.OnlineOn this month’s cover, a community nurse practices health education with residents of a small fishing village in rural Uganda. Former AJN clinical managing editor Karen Roush took the photo in a small community center made of dried mud bricks, wood, and straw.

According to Roush, nurses wrote the lessons out on poster-sized sheets of white paper and tacked them to the mud wall as they addressed topics like personal hygiene, sanitation, food safety, communication, and prevention of infectious diseases. The reality of nursing in Africa is explored this month in “‘I Am a Nurse’: Oral Histories of African Nurses,” original research that shares African nurse leaders’ stories so we may better understand nursing from their perspective.

Some other articles of note in the August issue:

CE feature: A major source of diverted opioid prescription medications is from friends and family members with legitimate prescriptions.  “Nurses’ Role in Preventing Prescription Opioid Diversion” describes three potential interventions in which nurses play a critical role to help prevent opioid diversion.

From our Safety Monitor column: More than 1.2 million enteral feeding tubes are placed annually in the United States. While the practice is usually safe, serious complications can occur. “Misplacements of Enteral Feeding Tubes Increase After Hospitals Switch Brands,” a report from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, reviews cases of misplaced tubes and offers guidance for how nurses […]

2016-11-21T13:02:11-05:00August 3rd, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research, patient engagement|0 Comments
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Remembering Nurses Who Served the Wounded and Dying and Those Who Died Themselves

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Normandy American Cemetery, France. Photo by Karen Roush Normandy American Cemetery, France. Photo by Karen Roush

So many of us look forward to Memorial Day weekend as a welcome long weekend and official start of summer. But there are many for whom Memorial Day (the last Monday in May) is a reminder of loved ones who died in military service—and that includes a significant number of military nurses who cared for the wounded in various wars.

We’d like to take this occasion to remind us all of the real meaning of this day and to honor the sacrifices of our colleagues. While it’s hard to find specific numbers of nurses who died in wars, one can extrapolate from what’s known about women who died, since most women who served in combat areas from the start of the 20th century through the Vietnam War were nurses.* […]

2016-11-21T13:02:30-05:00May 22nd, 2015|nursing history|8 Comments
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Florence Nightingale: The Crucial Skill We Forget to Mention

“Suppose Florence hadn’t been a writer? Think about it…”

Karen Roush, PhD, RN, is an assistant professor of nursing at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, and founder of the Scholar’s Voice, which works to strengthen the voice of nursing through writing mentorship for nurses.

karindalziel/ via Flickr Creative Commons karindalziel/ via Flickr Creative Commons

When we talk about the diversity of what nurses do, there is no better example than Florence Nightingale herself.

She was an expert clinician working in hospitals in Europe and London and caring for soldiers in military hospitals during the Crimean War. She was a quality improvement expert, implementing improvements in military hospitals that had a major impact on patient outcomes. Her work as an educator created the very foundation of nursing as a profession. She was a researcher and epidemiologist, using statistical arguments to support the changes she demanded. She was a public health advocate, campaigning for improvements that benefited the health of populations globally. She was our first nursing theorist, defining an environmental model of health care still used today.

But you are probably aware of all of this. Florence’s contributions to nursing and health are well known. What often gets left out though, and is of great importance to the history of nursing and how we practice today, […]

2016-11-21T13:02:32-05:00May 13th, 2015|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|11 Comments
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Enough Rants: On Fostering Meaningful Dialogue

Karen Roush PhD, RN, is an assistant professor of nursing at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, and founder of the Scholar’s Voice, which works to strengthen the voice of nursing through writing mentorship for nurses.

Angry woman, Ranting By Amancay Maahs/Flickr

“Patients are never satisfied!” “Only bedside nurses really understand nursing!” “Management always takes advantage of you!”

These are examples of the types of statements I’ve heard recently, whether talking with other nurses or reading blogs or other social media. Often presented as contributions to discussion, in reality they are rants—more interested in eliciting rote agreement than in true dialogue. This has got me thinking about how we create dialogue, especially about topics that stir an emotional response—particularly when anger is front and center. I’m a firm believer that:

  • creating dialogue is necessary and transformative
  • strong emotions are often the impetus for needed change

But we can’t allow emotions to dominate. When they do, our discussion is no longer a dialogue; it’s a rant. And rants are not productive for creating change. They eat up the energy that could otherwise be directed to positive action.

So, how do we do create dialogue about the issues that get our backs up? Here are my thoughts:

2016-11-21T13:03:05-05:00February 4th, 2015|healthcare social media, Nursing, nursing perspective|4 Comments
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Much Ado About a Fist Bump Study

hands touching illustrates post about fist bump study and germsBy Karen Roush, clinical managing editor

In this world of evidence-based care, is there anything to be said for common sense? Last week a study was published in the American Journal of Infection Control that found that a fist bump transmitted fewer organisms than a handshake.

Really? We know that hands carry untold numbers of organisms. We know that skin-to-skin contact transmits organisms. We know that duration of contact plays a role in how many organisms are transmitted. Did we need a study to tell us that hand-to-hand contact with less surface area for a shorter duration of time would transmit fewer organisms?

With the attention being paid to this study, you might think it was a major discovery. Why? Because it’s fun to talk about fist bumps versus handshakes? (David Letterman seems to think so; he recently opened his monologue with a joke about the study results.) Because we kind of like the visual of everyone, from the staid to the cool, walking around giving fist bumps?

Or perhaps, on a serious note, because we’re still struggling unsuccessfully to get people to simply wash their hands and are ready to jump on anything that mitigates the risk of transmission when they don’t? (Adherence to hand hygiene guidelines among health care workers remains low. Read our March 2013 CE–Original Research feature, in which […]

2016-11-21T13:04:12-05:00August 4th, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Providing Culturally Sensitive Care: It Takes More Than Knowledge

By Karen Roush, AJN clinical managing editor. Photos by the author.

DSC_0136One Saturday a few weeks ago I grabbed my camera and headed out to spend the afternoon taking photographs around the city. I ended up wandering around the streets of Chinatown, photographing the street life—the rows of fresh fish on piles of ice, the colorful patterns of vegetables in crates outside shops, old women in variations of plaid and flowered housedresses lined up on a bench, children scattering clusters of pigeons.

Eventually I happened upon a vigorous and highly skilled game of handball in a park. The competitors were predominately young Asian men, though there were a few Hispanic men playing too. Standing next to me, a young man was telling his friend about a clever way a mutual friend had devised to get out of paying a parking ticket. If you live in New York, or almost any big city, you will earn yourself a parking ticket or two at some point. Intrigued by this man’s idea, I asked him if it actually worked and he assured me it did. Then he rolled his eyes and said, “Oh no, I shouldn’t have said anything. Once the white people know, that’s the end of it!” […]

2016-11-21T13:04:26-05:00June 25th, 2014|career, nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment
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To Be a Nurse Is a Powerful Thing: Thoughts on Graduation

By Karen Roush, PhD, RN, FNP, AJN clinical managing editor

Photo by Karen Roush. Photo by Karen Roush.

After years of work and sacrifice, last month I successfully defended my dissertation. In the weeks leading up to my defense I found myself overcome with emotion each time I imagined that moment when I would hear myself called “doctor” for the first time. And my breath did catch in my throat when the questioning was over and the chair of my dissertation committee turned to me and said those magic words, “Congratulations Dr. Roush.”

But then something funny happened. There was no incredible high. I wasn’t walking on air. For so many years I’ve been focused on the goal of achieving a doctor of philosophy in nursing. But now that I’ve accomplished that, I am faced with a new and no less difficult challenge—what I do from here and how I make those words, Dr. Roush, mean something.

Many of you graduating this month may have similar feelings. It is a powerful thing to be a nurse. What we’ve learned in the classrooms, in hospital halls, in the connections that pass between us and our patients in moments great and small, has given us tremendous knowledge. But it is what we choose to do with that knowledge and how we do it that gives […]

2016-11-21T13:04:47-05:00May 12th, 2014|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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If You Really Want to Get That Letter Published

By Karen Roush, PhD, RN, FNP, AJN clinical managing editor

via Wikimedia Commons via Wikimedia Commons

We love getting letters to the editor . . . really . . . whether it’s to agree or disagree, applaud or admonish. With some articles we actually feel a sense of excited anticipation—this should get some letters!—not because we like to create controversy (though we don’t shy away from it either when there’s something important at stake), but because we want to create dialogue among our readers.

That’s what the Letters to the Editor column is for: to add to the conversation by pointing out nuances, adding support from personal experience, expressing a dissenting view of a topic, or offering corrections or clarifications.

A good letter to the editor contains:

• a point of view
• a sense of the writer and why they were moved to write a letter
• additional information that clarifies, corrects, or enhances the original text (and the evidence backing it up)
OR:
• a reasoned, respectful argument (and the evidence to back it up) against some aspect of the original text
OR:
• a narrative that gives a clearer sense of the human implications of the original text

These are the main criteria we look for in the letters we receive.

We are glad when you enjoy an article or are pleased to see the […]

2016-11-21T13:04:53-05:00April 28th, 2014|career, nursing research|0 Comments
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Content disclaimer

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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