Off the Charts

Nurse Salaries Rose Last Year—But Will They Hold?

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

Median RN salaries in the United States rose by $5,000 from 2020 to 2021, while median advanced practice RN salaries jumped $13,000, according to the Nurse.com’s 2022 Nurse Salary Research Report. The report was based on the responses of 2,516 nurses to an online survey conducted in November and December of 2021. This and other data on nurses’ salaries are reported on in an article in AJN’s September In the News column.

Some other highlights from the report include:

Nurses in all regions of the United States reported gains except in the region comprising Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington DC, where the RN median salary dropped by $4,000 in 2020.
The median salary across all three licensed groups was $89,590 for union nurses compared with $75,000 for nonunion nurses.
The report suggests that a gender pay gap among RNs widened in 2021, with male RNs earning $14,000 higher than the median salary for female RNs. (However, the sample size of male respondents was disproportionately small, and differences in clinical setting, higher acuity specialties, and certification levels—all of which influence pay—were not explored.)

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Amy M. Collins, managing editor2022-09-08T08:18:13-04:00September 8th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments

School Nurses Teaching Lifesaving Skills to Children

A scary moment in the home.

One weekend morning, my then-six-year-old son ran into the kitchen holding a half-eaten piece of fruit and looking panicked. He and his brothers had just finished eating breakfast before rushing off to play a game in the next room. Only a faint wheeze emerged when my son tried to breathe. He was choking.

Years earlier, my husband and I had taken a cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and first aid class for new parents taught by paramedics and nurses at our local community center. We immediately used techniques we’d practiced in that class to successfully dislodge the food, and our son recovered fully. That long-ago instruction had not only given us the knowledge needed to clear our son’s airway but also the confidence to do so calmly during a frightening moment.

A 4th-grader learns proper technique for chest compressions and how to use an AED. Photo by Dulce Rodriguez.

Collaborating with the community to empower students.

In our May issue In Our Community column, nurses in the Klein Independent School District in Harris County, Texas, describe how they have been instilling this combination of lifesaving […]

Corinne McSpedon, senior editor2022-09-01T08:29:18-04:00September 1st, 2022|Nursing, Public health, school nurses|0 Comments

September Issue: Postinjury Pain and Mental Health Symptoms, Supporting Family Caregivers, More

“As the most invisible part of our health care workforce, family caregivers come from all walks of life.”—Heather M. Young, Rita B. Choula, and Susan C. Reinhard in their Guest Editorial, “Caring for a Person Living with Pain”

The September issue of AJN is now live. Here’s what’s new. Some articles may be free only to subscribers.

Pain and Mental Health Symptoms After Traumatic Orthopedic Injury

A review of the presentation, screening, and treatment of postinjury symptoms associated with stressor-related disorders such as acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, including pain, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression.

AJN Reports: Diabetes Self-Management in the Acute Care Unit

A discussion of the practical and policy barriers affecting hospitalized patients with diabetes who wish to maintain a role in their own glucose management—and how new technologies may support the case for greater flexibility.

Special Feature: Increasing Access to Diabetes Education in Rural Alabama Through Telehealth

The authors describe a project they developed to assess the use of telehealth technology to deliver diabetes self-management education and support in a rural, small group setting.

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Diane Szulecki, editor2022-08-29T09:15:32-04:00August 29th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments

Message from a Concerned School Nurse

Robin Cogan

In case you have not seen the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for schools, published on August 11, 2022, here they are: Operational Guidance for K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs to Support Safe In-Person Learning.

Key changes in CDC guidance for schools.

The CDC has chosen the path of least resistance as schools are about to reopen or are in their first few weeks of the new school year. Although the word “prevention” is included in the CDC’s name, this central goal seems to have been removed from these guidelines, including crucial pieces of the mitigation strategies that in the past prevented the school-level spread of the virus:

The recommendation to cohort has been removed—its absence will increase class sizes, removing a layer of mitigation.
The recommendation to conduct screening focused on high-risk activities during times of high COVID-19 spread or an outbreak has been changed, mostly leaving it up to individual districts to determine what constitutes an outbreak, with little guidance from local health departments.
The recommendation to quarantine has been removed, except in high-risk congregate settings. I would suggest that schools are congregate settings. We can quibble about use of the term “high-risk,” but we certainly do have high-risk staff, students, and community members […]
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Guest Author2022-08-25T09:13:06-04:00August 25th, 2022|infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health, school nurses|2 Comments

Poliovirus: Still a Threat

First U.S. polio case in nearly a decade.

Henderson respirator 20th century. Credit: Wellcome Library, London, via Wikipedia Creative Commons.

Last month, an unvaccinated 20-year-old in Rockland County, New York, was diagnosed with paralytic polio. He had not traveled in the previous month; he was infected by an (unknown) individual who had travelled and acquired the infection abroad.

According to the CDC, poliovirus was also found in wastewater from Rockland and a neighboring county—coincidentally sampled in May, June, and July as part of SARS-CoV-2 surveillance—and some of the positive samples were genetically linked to virus from the patient. This reflects ongoing community transmission and ongoing risk to unvaccinated residents. Because most poliovirus infections are […]

Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2022-08-23T08:43:27-04:00August 23rd, 2022|infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments

Some other highlights from the report include:

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A scary moment in the home.

Collaborating with the community to empower students.

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Key changes in CDC guidance for schools.

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First U.S. polio case in nearly a decade.

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