This post is a bit of a departure for the Word Curmudgeon (in that it’s neither very curmudgeonly nor about some arcane word usage question), but I think it’s a worthy departure and of particular relevance to both military nurses (abroad and stateside) and nonmilitary nurses—anyone, in fact, who treats women who’ve served in the U.S. military. […]
I like Geneva. What’s not to like about a city that celebrates chocolate, watches, flowers, and Heidi? However, on this visit to attend meetings of the Global Advisory Group on Nursing and Midwifery at the World Health Organization (WHO), I used some of my free time for more serious pursuits as well. 
At United Nations Square, just across from the Palais des Nations, a sculpture of a 12-meters-tall straight-back chair with one broken leg looms over one corner of the square. Commissioned by Handicap International, “Broken Chair” (by artist Daniel Berset) is a monument to those who have lost limbs from land mines. It’s a powerful image.
Just off the square and up a small rise is the Musee International de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge (so much better in French than the “International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum”). As you walk up the ramp to the museum entrance, you encounter a group of shrouded, life-size figures by Swiss artist Carl Bucher. The piece, called “The Petrified,” represents the faceless victims of human rights violations. The effect of the figures is sobering—a high school class walking up the ramp, clowning and laughing and chatting loudly, literally stopped in their tracks and fell silent. The teenagers behind them started yelling for them to move on, but then they too quieted down when they came into view of the […]
Sharon A. R. Stanley, PhD, RN, RS, has been named chief nurse and director of disaster health and mental health services by the American Red Cross. AJN is pleased to see that the Red Cross decided to renew the position of Chief Nurse—especially now that its Red Cross Nursing Service is poised to celebrate its 100th anniversary next month. As we reported in AJN last July, the organization’s leadership gave early retirement to Chief Nurse Nancy McKelvey, and cut the position as part of its plan to deal with a $200 million deficit. Our report was the basis for an emergency resolution at the 2008 American Nurses Association (ANA) meeting of its House of Delegates, in which the delegates directed the ANA to write and urge the Red Cross to reinstate the position. […]
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is supporting a new Institute of Medicine (IOM) Commission on the Future of Nursing. The chairperson will be University of Miami President Donna Shalala (also former Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Clinton Administration); the commission will include a few nurses but also others from various private and public sectors. The foundation has been investing significantly in nursing in recent years, with projects such as the Executive Nurse Fellowships, an interdisciplinary nursing research initiative, Transforming Care At the Bedside, and the AARP Center to Champion Nursing.
The commission is not expected to start its work until later this year, but nursing should applaud the RWJ Foundation for recognizing the importance of nursing and being willing to invest in it. My money is betting that this commission will result in significant recommendations—instead of unread and tepid reports designed to collect dust.
-Diana Mason, AJN editor-in-chief
Today on a national news program, a nurse was given credit for something pretty outstanding. One of the first words Charla Nash spoke upon emerging from a medically induced coma was “Lisa,” the name of one of her nurses, according to one of her brothers on the Today Show this morning. The Connecticut woman, who was mauled by her friend’s chimpanzee in February, sustained horrific injuries, so bad in fact that according to the Daily News the nurses and physicians who treated her were offered counseling afterward. She has since been recovering at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, the first hospital to perform a face transplantation in this country. Nash’s prognosis was pretty bleak for a while, but this morning her brothers said that she’s now able to sit up and to speak with the aid of an artificial voice box. Steve Nash attributed her response to the nurse to the fact that the nurses “had always talked to [Charla] as if she were awake.” If you would like to learn more about Charla Nash—the person, mother, sister, and friend—and send her an e-mail of encouragement, go to www.friendsofcharlienash.com, which has been set up by her family.
–Christine Moffa, MS, RN, AJN clinical editor
