Can Grieving Loss of Idealism in Nursing Give Room for New Hope?

It is no secret by now that the pandemic has dealt blows to morale in nurses like never before. The issues are being voiced everywhere—nurses find themselves overworked, understaffed, underpaid, disrespected by both the health care system and many in the general public, in sometimes deeply startling ways.

As professionals who come to work every day looking to help, restore, and heal, we found ourselves losing our idealism about our profession. On top of our ongoing grief over our patients—both COVID and non-COVID related—we’ve also felt the loss of watching increasing numbers of beloved colleagues either leave the profession or leave our units, often because of preexisting issues highlighted by the stresses of the pandemic.

This is not at all to say that their reasons for leaving are wrong. It’s only to say that those of us who stay feel the grief of seeing them leave and wonder anew about our own longevity in this work, even as we support their decisions and wish them well.

Four motivations that have kept me in nursing.

This has left me inevitably asking myself why I still stay. My motivations for staying in this work and in my current workplace are:

  1. To provide meaningful, helpful care to my patients and families.
  2. To work in a supportive environment that is life-giving […]
2022-01-28T09:57:59-05:00January 28th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Ready to Write for Publication? AJN’s Manuscript Wish List

The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) is currently seeking article submissions in a number of topic areas and of various types. Please read this short post for more information, and pass the link along to anyone you know who might have a particular area of expertise or interest to write about.

AJN publishes original research, quality improvement (QI), and review articles as CE and feature articles. We also publish shorter, focused columns. Submissions must be evidence based and are peer reviewed.

Clinical features should cover epidemiology, pathology, current research, “what’s new” in knowledge and/or treatment, and nursing implications. Feature articles are usually 5,000 to 8,000 words.

We currently seek articles on these clinical topics:

  • Diabetes management
  • Orthopedic topics—joint replacement, spinal injuries
  • Most pediatric topics—but especially pain, scoliosis, adolescent mental health
  • Best practice in anticoagulant therapy
  • Acute/critical care updates (new guidelines, research)
  • Autoimmune disorders (such as lupus)
  • Infectious disease and public health
  • Polycystic ovary syndrome, gynecologic cancers
  • Managing/troubleshooting skin rashes
  • Parenteral and enteral feeding update

[…]

2022-01-26T10:11:38-05:00January 26th, 2022|career, Nursing, nursing career, writing|0 Comments
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If Nurses Are War Heroes, They Deserve Real and Lasting Support

Matthew Waring/Unsplash

The rhetoric of war is regularly applied to health care, whether we’re talking about a patient “fighting” cancer or “frontline” workers like nurses engaged in a “battle” or a “war” against a new infectious disease. This is a habit beloved of speech makers, academics, and journalists, and it’s likely to continue.

With strong metaphors comers real responsibility.

Rather than decrying this practice in favor of a more purely accurate use of language, the author of this month’s Viewpoint, Lorri Birkholz, DNP, RN, NE-BC, an assistant professor of nursing at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, argues that the choice to use such language comes with responsibility.

“If war language is going to be used to define this pandemic and the nurses caring for patients, then legislation must ensure care for their acute and long-term physical and mental well-being.”

Birkholz notes that federal COVID-relief legislation limited provisions for frontline workers to temporary hazard pay and mandated sick leave—far short, by way of comparison, of that received by 9/11 first responders or returning war veterans. […]

2022-01-24T09:56:24-05:00January 24th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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AJN’s Top 5 Guest Blog Posts of 2021

One of my roles as a senior editor at AJN is to edit and maintain AJN’s blog. We try to publish a new post two to three times each week.

A percentage of these are original first-person nursing stories and perspectives by nurses in various specialties, from critical care to community health to oncology to school nursing. I often think of these as the lifeblood of the blog, the posts that can really reach people at the feeling level, and I am always grateful to receive them—from regular or first-time authors. These posts can be heartbreaking or gently humorous, or both. The range of styles and voices is wide.

Other equally important posts are those by nurses with an argument to make about an urgent issue in practice or policy. Some of these give rise to a certain amount of debate and stimulate further discussion in the nursing community.

In addition, a fair number of short posts are by AJN editors, in some cases bringing to bear their own clinical or personal experience as they address a matter of concern like nurse staffing, or providing essential context about why they think you should read an article found in that month’s issue.

As we’ve done in the past near the start of […]

2022-01-19T10:38:00-05:00January 19th, 2022|Nursing|0 Comments
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Migraines: A Comprehensive Review of the Most Debilitating Primary Headache Type

r. nial bradshaw / flickr creative commons

This month’s CE feature article, Diagnosing and Managing Migraine, is one I’m sure many readers will relate to, and perhaps even find some answers in for their own headaches.

Like many women, I could count on experiencing at least one each month—classic menstrual migraines—that would begin with a visual aura of wavy lines that made reading or driving impossible. Sometimes, taking acetaminophen or ibuprofen right at the onset of the aura and relaxing/lying down, could prevent it from progressing further.

Otherwise, I would become overly sensitive to lights and sounds and develop a pounding headache and nausea that made me retreat to a dark, quiet room for several hours until the headache passed.

The most debilitating type of primary headache.

The authors note that “90% of the U.S. population will develop a headache within their lifetime.” Migraine, the most debilitating type of primary headache (that is, when the headache is the disorder as opposed to being secondary to other causes), occurs in about 12% of the population. I was surprised that while prevalence is fairly equally distributed among boys and girls prior until puberty (2.5 or 2.4 percent), it changes dramatically post-puberty:

“The greatest difference between the sexes occurred between the ages of 20 and 40, when […]

2022-01-14T16:11:56-05:00January 14th, 2022|Nursing|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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