Off the Charts

Birdcages: An Oncology Nurse on Crucial Information Patients Need About Dying

Julianna Paradisi, who blogs at JParadisi RN and elsewhere, works as an infusion nurse in outpatient oncology. Her art has appeared several times in AJN, and her essay, “The Wisdom of Nursery Rhymes,” was published in the February 2011 issue.

I grew up in a family in which occasional conversations about death occurred at the dinner table. My father openly discussed his own. As a child, this terrified me, but he would say, “It’s a terrible subject, but everyone dies someday.”

by Julianna Paradisi

I don’t remember how old I was when my father made me promise he’d be cremated and his ashes spread over the ocean upon his death. It feels like I always knew, and this knowledge comforted me when, a few years ago, my siblings and I spread his ashes from a boat over the Pacific Ocean where he used to fish.

Paradoxically, in other contexts my father struggled when it came to telling me about death. Starting when I was around three years old, in the springtime, he would sometimes bring home baby birds that fallen from their nests. He kept an old birdcage for this purpose. He let me name the birds, and I called each of them Jimmy. He taught me to mix small pieces of bread with watered-down milk, and then feed it bit by bit into their disproportionately large mouths with an eyedropper.

This ritual usually lasted two days. On the third morning, […]

Julianna Paradisi, RN, OCN2018-03-28T10:34:25-04:00April 10th, 2013|nursing perspective|6 Comments

Sustainable Health Care Environments

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Laura Anderko

In our April issue, we give a nod to Earth Day (April 22) and its focus on the environment. The article, “Greening the ‘Proclamation for Change’: Healing Through Sustainable Health Care Environments” (free until May 8), by Laura Anderko and colleagues Stephanie Chalupka, Whitney Austin Gray, and Karen Kesten, highlights how hospitals can incorporate design elements and practices not only to reduce energy consumption and garbage, but to provide a healing environment for patients and staff. There is ample evidence in support of the use of natural light, noise-reducing materials for floors and walls, and other design elements in improving rest and healing. And the evidence also shows the benefit to staff in terms of reducing stress, fatigue, and errors. Denise Choiniere

Anderko put me in touch with Denise Choiniere, MS, RN, a former critical care nurse who is now director of sustainability, materials management, and in-house construction at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. So how does one go from being a bedside nurse to overseeing construction and environmental efforts? Choiniere says she had “an ‘aha’ moment” when she realized that the chemicals being used to clean hospitals could make people ill. Listen to my podcast with Anderko and Choiniere to learn more about how nurses […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2016-11-21T13:07:54-05:00April 8th, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments

AJN’s April Issue: Sustainable Health Care Environments, Preventing Kidney Injury, Lateral Violence, Mental Health, More

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

Mechanical prophylactic devices such as intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) devices, are applied, maintained, and monitored exclusively by nursing personnel. In this month’s original research article, “The Application of Intermittent Pneumatic Compression Devices for Thrombophylaxis,” the authors observed frequent misapplications of ordered IPC devices, and highlighted the need to study the consequences of such errors. This article is open access and can earn you 2.3 continuing education (CE) credits.

Over the past decade, the incidence of acute kidney injury requiring dialysis has risen sharply in the U.S., with associated death more than doubling. “Preventing and Responding to Acute Kidney Injury” makes the case that by identifying the signs and symptoms of acute kidney injury in its early stages, nurses may be able to help reduce the severity of injury and improve outcomes. This article is open access and can earn you 2.6 CE credits. You can also listen to a podcast interview with the author.

Lateral violence is a term used to describe what happens when a person acts in a verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive way toward someone else of a similar status or level of authority. As has been noted more than once before, RNs sometimes commit lateral violence against other staff members. “‘Crucial Conversations’ in the Workplace,” the second article in our leadership series, offers nurse managers a framework […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:07:56-05:00April 5th, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments

A Chorus of Bravo! and Huzzah! for these ‘Art of Nursing’ Contributors

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

from Two Albuquerque Moons, (c) Charles Kaiman 2007

The digital grapevine has brought news from several Art of Nursing contributors, and it makes me happy to pass it along. If you’re not already familiar with AJN’s Art of Nursing page, it’s a regular monthly department that features poetry, “flash” fiction, and visual art. Visit our Web site and have a look! (Art of Nursing is always free; please click through to the PDFs for the best view.)

Bernadette Geyer’s first full-length collection of poetry, The Scabbard of Her Throat, was published last month by The Word Works. It was selected for publication under the Hilary Tham Capital Collection imprint by Cornelius Eady. Geyer also has a poem in the second volume of the anthology The Waiting Room Reader: Words to Keep You Company, edited by Rachel Hadas and published in February by CavanKerry Press. Geyer, whose poem “Lessons” was featured in Art of Nursing (May 2010), works as a copy editor in the Washington, DC, area.

Charles Kaiman had a one-person show of his paintings in February and March at the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York City, his 15th solo show. For a virtual peek, visit the gallery’s web site. Kaiman’s art has appeared numerous times in our pages, most recently “Candlelight Self-Portrait” (September 2011) and “Lemon and Honey” (September 2009). Kaiman works as a clinical nurse specialist […]

Guest Author2016-11-21T13:07:57-05:00April 3rd, 2013|Nursing|1 Comment

It Bears Repeating: ‘A Smart Doctor Listens to the Nurses’

AprilReflectionsIllustraion By Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor

The April Reflections essay in AJN—Reflections is a monthly one-page column we’ve run for many years inside the back cover—has an unambiguous title: “A Smart Doctor Listens to the Nurses.”

Written by a pediatrician whose mother was a nurse, it gives a vision of continuity in the health care profession rather than opposition, of mothers and daughters, and seems particularly relevant as debates continue about whether or not nurses should be allowed to practice to the full scope of their abilities and knowledge. Here’s the opening paragraph, but it’s free, and we hope you’ll read the entire short essay:

I was in the hall outside a patient’s room with a new crop of interns and residents. As usual, they had all made rounds first thing in the morning, checked on new lab results, examined their patients, and were now ready to report everything to me, the attending. And, as usual, these bright, eager residents, though anxious to do a good job, hadn’t thought to talk with the nurses taking care of their patients.