The Sacraments of Nursing

At the center of Sister Thecla’s demonstrations was an old manikin that lived all its days on the hospital bed at the front of the classroom. I can still see its chipped, painted face—the trust in the eyes, the unreadable thin lips. I can see Sister Thecla turning that manikin on its side, taking care so the blanket wouldn’t slip and expose any imagined privates. And Sister Thecla’s hands—how they were all tenderness, and how somehow, right before our eyes, they transubstantiated the cotton backside of that manikin into the feverish, aching flesh of a real sick person.

Every month, as you may know, we publish a personal essay inside our back cover. This month, our Reflections essay is by Madeleine Mysko, the coordinator of that monthly column. Madeleine, a novelist and poet who teaches writing in the Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs, is also a nurse. She helps us find potential writers and reviews most Reflections submissions. I edit all accepted submissions before publication, but I sometimes call on Madeleine for another point of view, especially if I’m stuck or if I sense I’m missing something crucial. She invariably has suggestions that make the essay flow more elegantly and cleanly—and strike home more powerfully.

The excerpt above is from her piece in the May edition of AJN. “The Sacraments of Sister Thecla” (for best reading, click through to the PDF version) describes a kind of mystical visitation from a teacher Madeleine had back in nursing […]

2016-11-21T13:12:54-05:00May 26th, 2011|career, students|0 Comments
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What Is the Role of the Staff Nurse on a Medical Emergency Team?

By Sylvia Foley, AJN senior editor

There is strong evidence that a hospital’s use of a medical emergency team (MET) helps to decrease the rates of in-hospital cardiac arrests, unplanned ICU admissions, and overall hospital mortality. (A MET is similar to a rapid response team, but is typically led by a physician rather than by a nurse.)

But our understanding of such teams is incomplete. Nurse researcher Margaret Pusateri and colleagues set out to explore, in particular, the role of non-ICU staff nurses during a MET call. They wanted to better understand such nurses’ familiarity with and perceptions of the MET, and possibly, to increase the team’s effectiveness. So they sent a survey to 388 non-ICU staff nurses at a large urban teaching hospital; 131 nurses (34%) responded.

The authors report on the results in May’s CE feature (for optimum reading, open the PDF version). Among their findings:

  • Nearly three-quarters of the respondents had participated in a MET call.
  • The most common actions they reported taking during the call included relaying patient history, initiating the call, and documenting MET data.
  • But fewer than half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statements “I feel comfortable with my role as a member of the MET” and “I know what my role as a member of the MET is.” […]
2016-11-21T13:12:55-05:00May 25th, 2011|nursing perspective, nursing research|1 Comment
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Some Fun Friday Food for Thought

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

With rain and gray clouds clinging to the East coast, this week seemed especially long. Commuting into New York City took much longer than usual, but on a positive note, there was more time to listen to the radio or read the paper. This week, some of us at AJN came across some interesting stories. They got us through ‘til Friday, so we’re sharing them—they’re too good to keep to ourselves.

  • One staffer’s reading turned up this piece: the Ford Motor Company is developing in-vehicle monitoring of diabetes and allergies. According to the article, it’s “aimed at helping people with chronic illnesses or medical disorders such as diabetes, asthma or allergies manage their condition while on the go.” Meaning, while driving?
  • As we were having a laugh about what this scenario might look like in reality, one editor spoke of a friend who, while driving herself to the hospital in labor, was using an iPhone app to monitor contractions. I wonder if there’ll be new laws against using health apps while driving…
  • My favorite story has nothing to do with nursing, but I can’t resist sharing it. Time.com ran a story about the possible end of the world, which some people think will happen Saturday. What’s startling is that some companies are already cashing in. One company called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets has the answer for those worried about pets left behind: its representatives are confirmed atheists—they’ll take care of the pets.

I’m not sure who said it, […]

2016-11-21T13:12:56-05:00May 20th, 2011|healthcare social media|1 Comment
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Farewell to Nurses Week 2011

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So Nurses Week 2011 has come and gone. I was in Malta at the start of it—at the 2011 International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting in Valletta—and in New York City at the end of it.  From two disparate locations, there was a singular thread: nurses seeking information to improve the lives of their patients and themselves.

In Malta, there were over 2,000 nurses from all over the world. Some participated as their nation’s representatives in the Council of National Representatives (see an earlier post describing ICN activities); some came for the educational sessions, or to share experiences or initiatives that have made a difference in the lives of nurses or patients. (I wrote about two of these moving stories.) The conference also served as a reminder of how much I regret not being fluent in another language—four years of high school French and a French-speaking grandfather helped a little, but there’s nothing like meeting colleagues who speak two or three languages (their own native language, English, and usually a bit of another one) to make you realize how necessary it is to be multilingual in today’s world.

On one day, I was eating lunch with colleagues from Brazil and Belgium. […]

2016-11-21T13:12:58-05:00May 18th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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Abandonment Guilt

This is the last in a series of posts by Sue Hassmiller, who has been blogging from the tornado destruction in Alabama, where she’s been volunteering with the Red Cross.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

I will do hospital visits today and have been told that the first family I will visit is a priority—an 8-year-old is not expected to make it through the day.  If he dies, then he will join his mother and brother, who were killed instantly. The father, who was at work when the tornado hit, was spared. We will talk to the father or the uncle. He speaks Spanish, so a translator will be present. 

How do you convey in words—especially through a translator—what you need to say, what you want to say? I will hug him . . . I know I will . . . everybody hugs here. And I know there will be survivor’s guilt. Not being a war veteran, this is the closest I have been to so much of it: a grandfather who survived while holding his 7-week-old granddaughter, who was “swept up and away”; an elderly mother who lost her 42-year-old daughter (a “famous paramedic . . . and helping so many”);  a wife of 32 years who lost her husband, the only breadwinner for the family—it goes on and on. 

The stories fill large white notebooks now, here at headquarters in Birmingham. And I am leaving tomorrow. I am leaving all of this behind and feel very acutely that I am abandoning them, all […]

2016-11-21T13:13:14-05:00May 16th, 2011|Nursing|2 Comments
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