‘So Many Things a Pill Can’t Solve’: An Integrative Therapy Nurse in Acute Care

“I don’t think that people realize how powerful human touch can be.”

“This therapy is invaluable to me—not just physically, but for my mental state too.”

“I think that we as Americans need more of this [integrative] therapy because there are so many things that a pill can’t solve.”

This is some of the feedback offered by patients after massage therapy sessions at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center. In this month’s AJN, integrative therapy nurse Hallie Boyd describes how her program has become a vital part of symptom management on the spinal cord injury and disorders unit there.

Help for patients in coping with chronic pain.

As a staff nurse on this unit, Boyd had encountered many patients who were trying to cope with chronic pain. While the hospital had long educated nurses on the use of integrative modalities such as guided imagery, acupressure, and aromatherapy, it was difficult for them to employ these techniques on a regular basis during busy and unpredictable shifts.

So, while continuing her work on the spinal cord unit, Boyd returned to school to focus on hospital-based therapeutic massage for medically complex patients. Training alongside a diverse group of practitioners, she developed and refined the idea of a full-time integrative therapy nurse as […]

2018-11-28T11:01:10-05:00November 28th, 2018|Nursing|1 Comment
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November Issue: Patient Handling in Nursing Curricula, Pediatric Pressure Injury Risk, More

“The technical skills and knowledge needed for nursing can be learned. For some nurses, this is enough. They do nursing, but nursing isn’t part of their identity. So how do we change that?” —EIC Maureen (Shawn) Kennedy in her November editorial

The November issue of AJN is now live. Here are some of the articles we’re pleased to have a chance to publish this month.

CE: Original Research: Patient Handling and Mobility Course Content: A National Survey of Nursing Programs

What do nursing programs teach students about lifting, turning, transferring, repositioning, and mobilizing patients? Despite evidence supporting the use of safe patient handling and mobility practices, the authors’ findings suggest that most curricula need updating in this area.

CE: How to Predict Pediatric Pressure Injury Risk with the Braden QD Scale

This article offers guidance on use of the Braden QD Scale—a pediatric risk assessment instrument that reliably predicts both immobility-related and medical device–related pressure injuries. Readers can test their skills by assigning scores to patients in a variety of scenarios.

Looking Back: Nurses Fight for the Right to Vote

The author shares the stories of four nurse suffragists—Lavinia Lloyd Dock, Mary Bartlett Dixon, Sarah Tarleton Colvin, […]

2018-10-26T08:30:41-04:00October 26th, 2018|Nursing|0 Comments
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Critical Mass at the Critical Care Nursing Conference

Boston + 9,000 nurses = NTI2018

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) is well-known for its annual National Teaching Institute (NTI), but this year, in terms of sheer scope, it surpassed all other meetings I know of. With over 9,000 attendees, registration had to be closed for the first time ever. Imagine—there were almost too many people at the Boston Convention Center, one of the largest venues in the country.

The exhibits, as always, were never-ending, with sections for industry, education, organizations, recruiters, and publishers. And as always, the “newbies” could be identified by the bags of giveaways they carted off . . . as opposed to the NTI veterans, who merely scan badges and have info sent to them.

Obstacles as opportunities for change.

Monday’s opening address by AACN president Christine Schulman was heartfelt. Reflecting on her soon-to-end year as the president and its chosen theme, “Guided by Why,” she encouraged us to explore the possibilities of making real changes when we face obstacles. And she announced that AACN was planning to take on the fundamental issue of nurse staffing:

“Inappropriate staffing has gone on for far too long. It involves many factors . . . and needs a major shift in how we think about delivering patient care.”

Body language creates and projects confidence.

The next day’s keynote address by social psychologist Amy Cuddy (see her popular TED Talk, “Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are“) gave attendees some insight […]

2018-06-06T12:38:27-04:00June 6th, 2018|career, Conference reports, Nursing|0 Comments
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A Dream of Horses: An Aging Veteran’s Healing Encounter

“Let’s go for a ride,” I said to Joe as he lay expressionless on his bed, covered in blankets and staring at the ceiling. The room was stuffy with hot, stale air. No bigger than a walk-in closet, the space held the lifetime possessions, many of them scattered on the bed, floor, and windowsill, of a 75-year-old veteran residing in an assisted living facility. Joe appeared frail and bored in the silence of the room.

Illustration by Janet Hamlin for AJN.

That’s the start of the Reflections column, “A Dream of Horses,” in the January issue of AJN. Written by a nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the short, moving essay describes a series of healing encounters between a frail older man, who seems to have given up on life, and the horses at a therapeutic equestrian barn.

The here and now.

The story told here reminds us how much we humans can cocoon ourselves against the more elemental forces of the natural world, and how healing it can be to encounter a magnificent animal that asks only that we be present in the here and now. The senses awaken. We look beyond our own habitual ways of […]

2018-01-16T10:00:35-05:00January 16th, 2018|Nursing, nursing stories, Patients|0 Comments
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A Nurse, a Purple Heart Medal, and the Pearl Harbor Attack

USS Arizona burning after Pearl Harbor attack

Tomorrow is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, when we honor the more than 2,400 Americans who were killed in the attack on December 7, 1941, that led the United States to enter World War II. Many nurses were there that day, caring for the wounded and showing civilians how to be of assistance—just as they have been during wartime dating back to the American Revolution. They have served in the U.S. military since Congress authorized the Army Nurse Corps and Navy Nurse Corps in the first decade of the 1900s, and before that provided battlefield care as civilians.

A nurse honored for service during the Pearl Harbor Attack.

Some of these nurses are spotlighted by exhibits and web pages of the National Women’s History Museum, an online museum that aims to “show the full scope of women’s contributions to history” and thus highlights the histories of female-majority professions such as nursing. “The Bravery of Army Nurse Annie G. Fox at Pearl Harbor” tells the story of the first U.S. servicewoman to receive the Purple Heart medal. First Lieutenant Fox was the head nurse at Station Hospital at Hickam Field, on the naval base at Pearl Harbor, when the […]

2017-12-06T10:48:59-05:00December 6th, 2017|Nursing, nursing history|0 Comments
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AJN in November: Preeclampsia Management, Health Conditions Associated with Military Service, More

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

CE: Preeclampsia: Current Approaches to Nursing Management

A clinical review of current practice related to preeclampsia risk assessment, prediction, and management, plus updated diagnostic criteria from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Task Force on Hypertension in Pregnancy.

CE: Original Research: Primary Care Providers and Screening for Military Service and PTSD

Evidence shows that veterans who receive their health care from private sector employers are less likely to be screened for military service—and therefore may not be treated for service-related health conditions. Here, the authors explore whether rural Pennsylvania providers offer this screening to their patients.

Creating a Fair and Just Culture in Schools of Nursing

What strategies can nursing schools use to create a fair and just culture? The second part in a two-part series.

Perspectives on Palliative Nursing: Liberty and Justice for All 

When an unauthorized immigrant suffers a brain injury, who decides when treatment is withdrawn? An ethical dilemma touches on issues of clinician autonomy and justice versus patient and family autonomy.

There’s much more in our November issue, including:

2017-10-30T09:25:26-04:00October 30th, 2017|Nursing|0 Comments
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Remembering an Air Force Nurse Killed in a Vietnam War Airlift

This Memorial Day weekend, as we remember all nurses who have served in the U.S. military, we spotlight one, Air Force Captain Mary Klinker, who died in a plane crash outside Saigon during the final days of the Vietnam War. She was the only member of the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps—and the last military nurse—to die in that war.

Capt. Klinker had volunteered to work aboard the first flight of a mission, Operation Babylift, ordered by President Gerald Ford’s administration in the weeks before the fall of Saigon (now called Ho Chi Minh City). The aim was to move 2,000 South Vietnamese orphans and displaced children to the Philippines and then the United States for adoption.

In addition to Capt. Klinker, more than 300 passengers, including Air Force personnel, Defense Attaché Office employees, and about 250 children, filled the troop compartment and cargo area of the C-5 cargo plane on April 4, 1975. Children were placed together in seats and cardboard boxes. Soon after leaving the airport near Saigon, a substantial malfunction in the rear of the plane led to a forced landing in a field. About 130 passengers, many of whom were in the cargo area, died. Capt. Klinker was caring for children […]

2017-05-26T13:22:46-04:00May 26th, 2017|Nursing, nursing history|0 Comments
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March News: Kangaroo Care Benefits, APRN Practice Authority Gains, More

Here are some of the news stories you’ll find in our current issue:

A new mother holds her baby in the neonatal intensive care […]

2017-03-07T08:57:13-05:00March 7th, 2017|Nursing|0 Comments
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Ann Burgess: Forensic Nursing Pioneer

Ann Wolbert Burgess, DNSc, RN, APRN-BC, FAAN. Photo courtesy of Caitlin Cunningham Photography.

Last fall, Ann Wolbert Burgess was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing. It’s a fitting honor for a nurse who has spent decades studying victims of trauma and abuse and the perpetrators of those crimes, in addition to working alongside the FBI and testifying as an expert in the courtroom. She has also written numerous articles and books and currently teaches forensics at Boston College.

Burgess earned her doctorate in psychiatric nursing from Boston University, and thought she’d ultimately be a nurse psychotherapist—but her career path took a different turn than she expected. In the early 1970s, motivated by the feminist movement, Burgess and her colleague Lynda Lytle Holmstrom started one of the first hospital-based crisis counseling programs for rape victims, at Boston City Hospital.

The program enabled nurses to provide counseling to rape victims, and allowed Burgess and Holmstrom to conduct research on rape victimology. Their research […]

2017-02-14T13:06:24-05:00February 13th, 2017|career, Nursing|2 Comments
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Top Nursing, Policy, Clinical Stories of 2016

Crowd members hold candles during a vigil for the victims of a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Photo © Associated Press

Late last year, we asked our editorial board members and contributing editors to tell us what they thought were the most important health news stories of 2016. In our January article “The Year in Review 2016,” we take a closer look at three of their most-mentioned topics: the Affordable Care Act (ACA), opioid misuse, and Zika virus.

What other issues stood out last year in specific areas of health care? We compiled top news story roundups for several categories—here’s an overview (click the links below to read the full articles):

Health Care Policy

  • Gun violence
  • Access to care: LGBT health, migrants, mental health care, medication costs, rural health care

Nursing

  • Workplace stress: 12-hour shifts, EHRs, evidence-based practice, staffing
  • Nursing education: increased access, faculty shortage, expanded simulation, improved employment prospects
  • Care delivery barriers: care for veterans, nurses’ practice authority

Clinical News

  • Sepsis awareness
  • Maternal mortality
  • Patient engagement
  • Population health trends

Finally, see “Stories to Watch in 2017” for a discussion of a few health topics, aside from the fate of the ACA, that we expect to hear more about this year.

2017-01-23T13:27:37-05:00January 23rd, 2017|Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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