Nursing Research: Alive and Well

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

Last week I spent two-and-a-half days in Washington, DC, where there are LOTS of campaign collectibles. My favorite: coffee mugs proclaiming “Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote (insert Democratic or Republican).” Also noteworthy: “Hot for Mitt” and “Hot for Barack” hot sauce (see photos). I was there attending the meeting of the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science (CANS), where close to 1,000 nursing researchers met to share their work. It wasn’t too long ago that one would have been hard-pressed to find that many nurses doing research. The National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) only celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2010 (see our 2010 article about their many accomplishments).

Creativity and innovation. Kathi Mooney, PhD, RN, FAAN, from the University of Utah College of Nursing, gave the keynote—and it was perfectly suited to this group, many of whose members are immersed in analytical thought and scientific methodology. Mooney talked about the importance of creativity and innovation in moving research forward—yes, applying scientific rigor to identifying knowledge […]

2017-05-27T10:35:26-04:00September 17th, 2012|nursing perspective, nursing research|0 Comments
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A Nurse and Mother on Dialing Back the Risk in Football

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP-C, AJN clinical managing editor

One Monday afternoon when my son Bryan was a senior in high school I got a call from him. He had hurt his back during football practice and was in so much pain he couldn’t move to get into his car. I rushed over to the field and found him standing, tense and still. When I lifted his shirt to look at his back, I gasped. The entire lumbar area was rounded and swollen out to the size of a grapefruit. At the hospital tests revealed he had a large hematoma, no critical damage done. The first question Bryan had for the doctor—“Can I play on Saturday?”

All week he insisted he could play and I insisted he couldn’t. His arguments never let up—he was quarterback and Saturday’s game was with an archrival. There wasn’t time for the backup quarterback to learn the plays, his team depended on him. Finally I made a bargain. We would go see his physician, whose judgment I trusted, and we would both respect his opinion, whichever way it went.

He played. One of the coaches wrapped his back in layers of padding with an ACE bandage and out he went. It was a brutal game. As determined as he was, the pain still slowed him […]

2016-11-21T13:09:20-05:00September 14th, 2012|nursing perspective, Public health|1 Comment
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Passion and Fear: Signs of a Kindred Nursing Spirit

Florence Nightingale in Crimean War, from Wikipedia Commons

By Marcy Phipps, RN, a regular contributor to this blog. Her essay, “The Love Song of Frank,” was published in the May issue of AJN.

“It’s not that we want something bad to happen; we just want to be there when it does.”

One of my colleagues recently saw that phrase on a T-shirt, and it perfectly echoes the sentiment of the ICU nurses I work with. We’re prepared for crises, primed for instability—and the lower acuity patients who have been populating the ICU lately leave many of us restless and discontented. We start to miss the dramatic cases, the incredible saves and miracles; we miss using our skills. We do see the irony of being in the awkward position of wishing for trauma patients, yet not actually wishing ill on anyone.

I haven’t always embraced unstable patients. When I was a new nurse I simultaneously dreaded yet was drawn to the instability of the ICU. I remember the early morning drives into work, a time of quiet anticipation filled with a gnawing fear that I’d make a mistake or be inexcusably inadequate at a crucial time.  I’d pray to gods above to be good enough, to be up to the tasks of the day; I clearly recall, more than once, taking report on an unstable patient and getting physically sick. Dramatic, I know, but born […]

2016-11-21T13:09:21-05:00September 12th, 2012|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Where Do You Get Your News?

By Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, AJN editor-in-chief

I’ve watched the recent political conventions and have been listening to the sound bites one hears on the radio and television news shows. The speakers and newscasters all sound intelligent and righteous and in command of “facts.” However, as we’ve learned from the widespread public misunderstanding of many aspects of the Affordable Care Act, it takes some deeper digging to know what’s “spin” versus what’s fact. (Indeed, fact-checking has become its own political issue, as it seems both parties have been playing a bit loose when it suits their messaging.)

I wonder how many people actually take the time to validate what they hear on the radio or television. Do most people take what they hear at face value? Will many people vote based only on what they heard from the convention coverage or in 30-second news clips (or worse, in the barrage of advertising paid for by the PACs, many of which are quietly funded by industries or wealthy individuals with a stake in who gets elected)?

It occurred to me that I’ve never seen my youngest son or nieces and nephews read a newspaper, yet they seem well-informed about the political issues. I asked my son where he gets his information. He said, “Well, there’s something called RSS feeds . . . .” (He was surprised that I not only knew what they were, but that I use them!) (RSS stands for really […]

2016-11-21T13:09:22-05:00September 10th, 2012|healthcare social media|3 Comments
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Best Care at Lower Cost: New IOM Report Spotlights Crucial Role of Nurses

By Mary D. Naylor, PhD, FAAN, RN. Dr. Naylor is the Marian S. Ware Professor in Gerontology and director of the NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She is also the National Program Director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program, Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative, aimed at generating, disseminating, and translating research to understand how nurses contribute to quality patient care. She was appointed to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission in 2010. 

Building on the Future of Nursing report’s call for nurses to fully engage with fellow health care professionals, a new report from the Institute of Medicine, Best Care at Lower Cost, calls on nurses and others in the health care system to apply emerging tools, technologies, and approaches to yield lower costs and better health outcomes. I had the great fortune to serve as a member of the study committee.

The complexity problem. The report couldn’t be more timely or relevant, particularly for nurses and the patients they serve, given the complexity of the current health care system. Administrative and workflow inefficiencies limit hospital nurses from spending more than about 30% of their time on direct patient care. With increasing specialization, modern medicine now includes nurses in more than 50 specialties. To successfully coordinate a patient’s care, nurses need to communicate and collaborate with patients, family caregivers, physicians, pharmacists, social workers, and many other team members.

The complexity […]

2016-11-21T13:09:23-05:00September 6th, 2012|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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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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