On the Road to the International Council of Nurses Conference in Malta

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

So I’m on my way to Valletta, Malta (Malta is a small Southern European country in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and North Africa and a five-hour ferry ride from Libya) for the International Council of Nurses (ICN) meeting. Since there’s no direct flight from my usual airport (Newark, New Jersey) to Malta, it was a no-brainer to go through Paris (April, Paris?) and stop there for a few days. I hadn’t been to Paris before—it was everything I thought it would be, and more. And its reputation as the “City of Light” is well deserved (see the photo of the Eiffel Tower at night, courtesy of my husband).  

This will be my third ICN meeting—I attended the centennial meeting in London, and then one a few years later in Copenhagen. It’s amazing to meet nurses from all over the world, many of whom are grappling with issues similar to those confronting us.

Many, though, are dealing with issues far worse than our own. For example, nurses from sub-Saharan Africa face enormous odds in the face of internal conflicts as well as HIV and AIDS, and nurses in Japan have recently dealt with a series of disasters. These nurses amaze me.

And then there are colleagues who seem to be on the same […]

2016-11-21T13:13:21-05:00May 2nd, 2011|Nursing|1 Comment
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A Voice That People Will Hear: Tips on Getting Letters to the Editor Published

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

We get some interesting “letters to the editor” delivered to AJN’s editorial offices.

Many are what you might expect: letters disagreeing with an article or letters supporting an article, letters from retired nurses about how nursing has changed, and letters from students who write as part of a class assignment. Occasionally, we get letters worthy of framing, like a recent letter from a member of the U.S. Congress (we were delighted to find that members of Congress read AJN). We also get heartfelt letters from patients extolling the virtues of nurses who changed their lives.

The letters from nurses who support an article are in sharp contrast to those written out of disagreement. The supporters usually contain a poignant personal story or an argument based in professional experience or actual research, while the majority of those who don’t like something we’ve published are vehement and sometimes downright crude in their language.

We’re getting used to that, but we still wish it weren’t so, because we can’t publish those letters. (After receiving an especially vitriolic letter, former editor-in-chief Diana Mason wrote this editorial.) I received one the other day that began, “Those people . . . are laughable and pathetic.” And that was a mild one. […]

2016-11-21T13:13:22-05:00April 27th, 2011|career, nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Swimming from Alcatraz

by jitze couperus via Flickr

By Marcy Phipps, RN, whose essay “The Soul on the Head of a Pin” appeared in the May 2010 issue of AJN. She’s a frequent writer  for this blog.

I’m going to swim from Alcatraz.

It’s daunting, yet irresistible, and a challenge I’m not taking lightly. As part of my preparation, I’ve purchased the book Open Water Swimming: Lessons from Alcatraz. In it, Joe Oakes and Gary Emich deliver a wealth of information and practical advice in a very direct way. They’ve provided much to mull over during my long training swims—and I’ve been struck by how well the principles they stress can be applied to nursing:

“Never swim alone and always swim with a competent pilot.”

It would obviously be unwise to attempt a treacherous swim alone. Similarly, it’s vital to work with a team who can be trusted to back one another up. It’s also vital to know who the resource people are and to have a mentor, whether formally or informally.

“There are plenty of sharks in San Francisco Bay.”

Unfortunately, there are occasionally sharks amongst hospital staff, as well. Shark-like behavior should be identified for what it is, and handled accordingly. It should never be taken personally.

“Wet suits are the most obvious way to keep yourself insulated.”

The authors […]

2016-11-21T13:13:23-05:00April 25th, 2011|career, nursing perspective, personal health practices|6 Comments
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Health Care Reform Works—If You Work It

Medical Bills

By Gail M. Pfeifer, MA, RN, AJN news director

My husband and I both recently had preventive screening colonoscopies, which are now covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as preventive care for adults over 50. That coverage, if you purchased a new health insurance plan on or after September 23, 2010, which we did, means you do not have to pay a copayment or coinsurance or meet a deductible if you use an in-network provider (here’s a full list of preventive services covered under the new law). You would think that medical office billers and insurance companies would know that by now.

Although some plans have clauses that let them off the hook on this rule, ours does not—these tests should have been covered. Lucky for us, we knew it when the bills came in. To make a long story short, I was billed for the “surgery” and for the anesthesia. So I first called the billing department of the GI specialist’s office and asked them to rebill the procedure correctly, as preventive screening. No further bills from them, for me, but shortly afterward, my husband was billed by the same office for “surgery” occurring months later—same doc, same procedure, same billing office. He’s following up with phone calls as I write.

I next called the anesthesia billing office, which said our insurance company had denied the claim. I called the insurance company, which looked at our plan […]

2016-11-21T13:13:25-05:00April 22nd, 2011|health care policy, nursing perspective, patient engagement|2 Comments
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Open Your Mind: Brain Pickings and TED (NOT the compression stockings)

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Twitter is a wonderful tool. This morning, as is my habit, I surfed my “favorites” column on my Tweetdeck platform to see what new and interesting things were being tweeted. And I noticed one of particular interest (I’ll get to it shortly) at the twitter page of Brain Pickings, a Web site that focuses on, in their own words,

“ . . . curating interestingness—picking culture’s collective brain for tidbits of stuff that inspires, revolutionizes, or simply makes us think. It’s about innovation and authenticity and all those other things that have become fluff phrases but don’t have to be.”

This twitter stream has alerted me to some unique and wonderful photographs, music, Web sites, charts and graphs, and books. True to its mission statement—and in service of the notion that “creativity is a combinational force”—it offers “ [c]urated bits of culture that will, at the very least, introduce you to new ideas and perspectives and, at their very best, help you think more, laugh more, create more.”

This morning, the tweet in question directed me to a video presentation by Kathryn Schulz, a self-proclaimed “wrongologist,” author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. In it, she explains […]

2016-11-21T13:13:29-05:00April 20th, 2011|Nursing|0 Comments
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