Off the Charts

Much Ado About a Fist Bump Study

By 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 authors […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:04:12-05:00August 4th, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective|1 Comment

AJN’s August Issue: Preventing Pressure Ulcers, Strengths-Based Nursing, Medical Marijuana, More

AJN’s August issue is now available on our Web site. Here’s a selection of what not to miss.

Toward a new model of nursing. Despite the focus on patient-centered care, medicine continues to rely on a model that emphasizes a patient’s deficits rather than strengths. “Strengths-Based Nursing” describes a holistic approach to care in which eight core nursing values guide action, promoting empowerment, self-efficacy, and hope. This CE feature offers 2.5 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article.

Decreasing pressure ulcer incidence. Hospital-acquired pressure ulcers take a high toll on patients, clinicians, and health care facilities. “Sustaining Pressure Ulcer Best Practices in a High-Volume Cardiac Care Environment” describes how one of the world’s largest and busiest cardiac hospitals implemented several quality improvement strategies that eventually reduced the percentage of patients with pressure ulcers from 6% to zero. This CE feature offers 2.8 CE credits to those who take the test that follows the article. And don’t miss a podcast interview with the authors (this and other podcasts are accessible via the Behind the Article page on our Web site or, if you’re in our iPad app, by tapping the icon on the first page of the article).

Read our Cultivating Quality column this month for another article on using evidence-based nursing practice to reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:04:12-05:00August 1st, 2014|Nursing, nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments

Marijuana Legalization and Potential Workplace Pitfalls for Nurses Who Partake

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN, writes a monthly post for this blog and works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology.

Mount Hood, Oregon, as seen from the Washington State side of the Columbia River Gorge/photo by Julianna Paradisi

Wednesday, July 9, 2014, marked the first day of legal, recreational marijuana sales in the state of Washington, not long behind similar new laws in Colorado earlier this year. As in Colorado, the marijuana supply in Washington was initially insufficient to keep up with demand; stores ran out of cannabis before all customers waiting hours in line got through the front door.

The following weekend, my husband and I (we live in Portland, Oregon) took a road trip through the Columbia Gorge on the Washington side of the river.

“Hey, we could buy a joint here, and share it,” I joked. (Neither of us actually partakes.)

My husband, a pharmacist, remarked, “It may be legal, but testing positive at work could get either of us fired or invite state board investigation.”

For my husband and me, as Oregon residents, the point is moot: no amount of THC in our urine or blood is legal. For Washington and Colorado residents, however, the […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2021-01-05T09:58:18-05:00July 30th, 2014|Nursing|31 Comments

Revisiting Reality Shock – What’s Changed for New Nurses?

julie kertesz/ via flickr creative common

By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Last month, we highlighted on Facebook a blog post I had written in 2010, “New Nurses Face Reality Shock in Hospital Settings – So What Else is New?” (It seemed timely in terms of all the June graduations.)

I wrote that original post in response to a study that had just been published in Nursing Outlook (here’s the abstract) describing the experiences of new nurses. Generally, these newbies felt harried, unprepared, overworked, and unsupported—all similar concerns voiced by nurses in Marlene Kramer’s 1974 book, Reality Shock: Why Nurses Leave Nursing. (Here’s AJN’s 1975 review of the book. It will be free for a month; note that you have to click the PDF link at the article landing page to read it.)

My post back in 2009 noted how nothing much seemed to have changed since the publication of Kramer’s book. Now, once again, this post has generated many comments, a number of them on our Facebook page as well as on the original blog post.

Here are a few. I’ll start with Facebook:

I’m almost a 20yr RN and have experienced [this] in a new job. I’ve developed skills to deal with this over the course of my career, so it doesn’t impact me like it […]

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Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2016-11-21T13:04:14-05:00July 28th, 2014|career, Nursing, nursing perspective, students|10 Comments

If She Yells ‘Help Me’ – Poster Therapy to Convey the Needs, Identity of an Ailing Parent

Joan Melton, MSN, lives in Indiana.

Photo by Ann Gordon, via Flickr

I am a geriatric nurse practitioner and have also been the daughter to an ill, aging parent. I felt well trained for my professional role but struggled with the latter.

I joked that, despite my logical understanding of what was going on with my mother, it could be hard to accept her physical and functional changes, which sometimes seemed to fly in the face of logic. There were days Mom’s hospice nurses spent more time with me than with my mother. They’d sit and allow me to vent my frustration at watching my mother slowly leave me, at feeling overwhelmed and “losing my cool” with her, at not being able to practice the advice I’d so readily handed out to so many other families over the years, not being able to “fix it” and successfully comfort all of Mom’s fears and ailments 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Yes, I know how unrealistic that last statement sounds. Thank goodness for hospice nurses, who reminded me that I was “the daughter” and did not need to be “the nurse practitioner.” They reminded me that as the daughter I had amazing insight no one else […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:04:15-05:00July 23rd, 2014|Nursing, Patients|7 Comments