Off the Charts

Getting Our House in Order

Nurses Address Structural Racism

In a webinar hosted by AJN, participants discussed nursing’s history and what nursing can do to eliminate structural racism in the profession. The first female dean of the George Washington University School of Law, along with nursing deans, educators, and clinicians offered their insights and recommendations.

These are well worth considering as we pause to honor the legacy and work of Dr. Martin Luther King on Monday. We hope you’ll take a listen. (It’s free and you can earn CE credit. If the above link doesn’t work for you, try this one to register and view the webinar.)

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2021-01-15T14:28:49-05:00January 15th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments

The Unsung Heroes of Hospice Are Family Caregivers

Nurses who find their vocation in hospice may be among the most understanding people on earth. As a nurse who has helped many, perhaps hundreds of patients transition into palliative care and hospice, I thought that I would be prepared to handle placing my father into home hospice after a stroke. At 90, my father had vascular dementia due to chronic infarctions. The call from his provider informing me that he had had an embolic stroke with a hemorrhagic component was not completely unexpected. After his anticoagulation was reversed, I knew that he was likely to have another stroke soon.

Walking the tightrope: daughter, nurse, caregiver.

I guess that’s the curse of the nurse. No false hope for me. As the nurse in the family, I walked the tightrope of caregiver, support person, and grieving daughter. The help from the hospice team was extraordinary, but the overall care and responsibility was placed on the family. It was a bit of a shock to me. I can’t imagine how families without members in health care manage.

My father did not pass his swallow test, and he had left-sided paralysis; however, he was initially able to communicate, with some effort. In fact, the priest who saw him on the first day was obviously curious as to […]

Guest Author2021-01-14T11:15:10-05:00January 14th, 2021|family caregiving, family caregiving, Nursing|2 Comments

A COVID-Era Telehealth Appointment Drives Home the Fragility and Strength of the Therapeutic Relationship

The Reflections essay in this month’s AJN is by LaRae Huyck, a psychiatric mental health NP. In this one-page story with a dramatic COVID-era twist, she explores her years accompanying a young counseling patient from suicidal depression during adolescence to joyful engagement with life as she heads out into the world on her own. Writes Huyck:

The time I spent with her seems so short, but in actuality it made up nearly a fourth of her life. We had traveled though the awkward adolescent years, the landmine of her parents’ divorce, the loss of a beloved grandmother, and a failed relationship that ended her dreams of a prom date.”

The healing power of a therapeutic relationship.

“The Importance of Time” adroitly summarizes this journey, revealing the author’s compassion for this young woman and her hopes for her as well. It’s a story of healing and growth that reveals the good that therapeutic relationships coupled with medication can do for some patients. […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2021-01-11T13:47:05-05:00January 11th, 2021|mental illness, narratives, Nursing, Patients|0 Comments

Hospital Visiting Policies in the Days of COVID-19

Last month, I watched a YouTube video with two physicians, ZdoggMD (Zubin Damania) and Vinay Prasad, both active on social media, discussing Prasad’s perspective that allowing patients “to die alone is a human rights violation.” He argued that clinicians should not accept blanket rules from administrators and believes there are ways around what seems to have been standard practice in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

So when we asked on AJN’s Facebook page (December 13), “Should hospitals allow patients with Covid-19 to have visitors?”, I was surprised that the comments were split. Many respondents supported the need for patients to be able to have loved ones with them, but many others felt visitors shouldn’t be allowed because PPE was scarce or because visitors didn’t follow rules and, as one commenter noted, “We don’t have time to be the PPE police.”

No one should die alone.

Nurses have been assisting patients to connect with family members by tablets or mobile phones, or in many cases filling in as surrogate family at the time of death. A colleague told me that in her ICU, nurses decided no one would die alone and made sure that one member of the staff was there with the patient. And while this was comforting to many families, I know from a […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2021-01-08T09:49:53-05:00January 8th, 2021|family, family experience, Nursing, Patients|1 Comment

AJN’s Top 10 Articles of 2020

What captured the interest of AJN‘s readers in 2020? More than just COVID-19, suprisingly! Though the pandemic dominated our collective attention, other topics in nursing continued to resonate. We’ve compiled a list of the past year’s most-read (new) articles below—all are currently free to access.

1. “COVID-19 Brings Changes to NP Scope of Practice”