Covering the Context: Health Care Doesn’t Occur in a Vacuum

As suggested by a post here last week, AJN has carried editorials, opinion pieces, and news reports about the Gulf War, Desert Storm, and the Iraq War, and about nurses and torture. We’ve also documented issues around women’s rights, AIDS in Africa, hunger, and poverty. (In November 2007, as part of a group of 200 journals organized by the Council of Science Editors, we focused an entire issue on poverty.) But we get pushback, in the form of letters—some readers feel that we should focus on nursing in the United States only.

2016-11-21T13:23:55-05:00August 10th, 2009|nursing research|0 Comments
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CDC Advisors Make Recommendations for Use of Vaccine Against Novel H1N1

AJN received this advisory earlier this week from the CDC:

swineflu2In July 2009, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made recommendations on who should receive vaccine against novel influenza A (H1N1) when it becomes available, and which priority groups should be vaccinated first if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities. Five key populations were focused on by the committee to help reduce the impact and spread of novel H1N1. The key populations include those who are at higher risk of disease or complications, those who are likely to come in contact with novel H1N1, and those who could infect young infants. The committee recommends that when the vaccine becomes available, the following groups, accounting for approximately 159 million people in the United States, should receive the vaccine first:

• pregnant women,
• people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age,
• health care and emergency services personnel,
• persons between the ages of 6 months through 24 years of age, and
• people from ages 25 through 64 years who are at higher risk for novel H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.

The committee does not expect that there will be a shortage of novel H1N1 vaccine, but availability and demand can be unpredictable. There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities. In this setting, the committee recommended that the following groups receive the vaccine before […]

2016-11-21T13:24:02-05:00August 7th, 2009|Nursing|0 Comments
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Rating AJN’s Coverage of Nazi Atrocities: Is Silence Ever an Option for Nurses?

One of the feature articles in the August issue takes an unflinching look at a shameful yet little-known episode of nursing history: “The Third Reich, Nursing, and AJN” by Mary Deane Lagerwey, PhD, RN, examines AJN’s coverage of events in Germany during the Nazi era—before and during WWII—and in the postwar years, and compares the reporting in this journal with that of other professional and popular journals of the day, such as Life and JAMA.

2016-11-21T13:24:07-05:00August 6th, 2009|nursing history, nursing research|1 Comment
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Subtle Bias Against Nursing Profession In NY Times Piece on Cuban Docs In U.S.?

In nursing, we need commitment, caring, and a desire to further the profession, not individuals who choose it because they can’t be something else. The former physicians in this article may become excellent nurses, and I give them the benefit of the doubt—but even so, when I read an article like this I can’t help thinking, not for the first time, that our system would have better outcomes if there was a little more humility.

2016-11-21T13:24:12-05:00August 5th, 2009|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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