Bringing Redemptive Voices from Greek Tragedy to COVID’s Frontline Clinicians

Bearing witness.

I enter my patient’s room and hear the sucking click as the door slides shut behind me. Vacuumed silence, negative pressure—but all the pressure in the world seems to settle onto my shoulders, my head, and down through my back, filling my feet like wet cement.

I need to move. His oxygen saturation is dropping again. He’s grimacing. Is he in pain? I wonder as I step closer to the bed. My pulse quickens as I take in the scene before me: glassy eyes inset upon a sunken, sallow complexion; bleeding mouth; the imperceptible rise and fall of chest to the biddings of the ventilator; swollen limbs. A lock of hair falls into my eyes, but my PAPR hood prevents me from pushing it aside. His heart rate and respiratory rate are higher now. Maybe he needs more sedation. If only he could speak. I take in a measured breath of filtered air as I suction his breathing tube. Breathe.

The doctor appears and is talking to me, but her voice is barely audible above the steady stream of air rushing past my ears. We’re practically shouting. The plan, a combination of trial and error, science, and visceral, pit-of-the-stomach intuition, is shaky at best.

As she moves away toward the door, I want to call out to her, to beg her to stay, to look upon the suffering and feel its weight, but I am silent and she disappears into a sea of blue scrubs. I am alone in this sealed room […]

2020-08-27T09:45:26-04:00August 27th, 2020|Nursing|1 Comment
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The Pediatric Illness PANDAS: Easy to Misdiagnose, Often Overlooked

What would you do if your young, previously healthy and happy child suddenly developed obsessive-compulsive disorder or symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome?

In “PANDAS: Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infection,” authors Christine Pabst and Kim Subasic discuss an unusual pediatric illness that, although identified more than 20 years ago, is not well recognized by clinicians: PANDAS, or Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infection.

PANDAS is characterized by the sudden and dramatic onset of “psychiatric” symptoms such as the ones above, appearing during or shortly after infection with group A streptococcus.

Two factors make PANDAS difficult to diagnose.

  • First, it seems so obviously a psychiatric disorder that psychotropic or other psychiatric medications may be prescribed without further investigation.
  • Second, carrying group A streptococcus without signs of actual infection can also precipitate PANDAS, making it difficult to connect PANDAS symptoms with a previous medical illness.

[…]

2020-08-24T06:27:32-04:00August 24th, 2020|Nursing, pediatrics|0 Comments
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Verified: Nurse Media Influencers

Responsible science communication can literally be the difference between life and death. Mass media, especially the news, as well as social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter, have a significant influence on people’s health beliefs and actions. As nurses we have a critical role to play in how the media reports on health issues and public health policy and on what messages the public and policy makers receive.

As clinicians, researchers, educators, public health practitioners, policy makers, and more, nurses need to use our expertise and voices to bring about change. At no  other time in our recent history has this been truer than during the current pandemics of COVID-19, racial injustice, and health inequity.

But nursing is a field often misunderstood by the public and the media. Most people think of nurses solely as clinicians at the bedside who do nothing more than take orders from physicians. But nurses are highly trained subject matter experts who work in a wide range of specialty areas including public health, social justice, law, history, research, education, school nursing, and more.

Nurses rarely recognized or ‘verified’ as experts.

Yet, the field of nursing is rarely recognized by the public, journalists, or even social media sites for this expertise. Open up any news article, or turn on any news program, […]

2020-08-20T09:49:34-04:00August 20th, 2020|career, Nursing, nursing perspective|3 Comments
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In a Formidable Nursing Career, Bernardine Lacey Faced and Overcame Racism

Her story is important to know, because it offers an opportunity to learn from the not-too-distant past and explore some of the difficult truths about racism in nursing, the role of the profession in this history, and the effect of these accounts on current diversity and inclusivity efforts.

Lacey meeting with first lady Barbara Bush in the White House in the 1980s.

So write Sandra Lewenson and Ashley Graham-Perel in their article in the August issue of AJN, ‘You Don’t Have Any Business Being This Good’: An Oral History Interview with Bernardine Lacey. In the article, they recount Lacey’s upbringing in the South and the many racial barriers that made it difficult for her in getting an education and pursuing her career—which became a formidable one. As a result of her many accomplishments in education, practice, and leadership, she was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing in 2014.

Racial barriers remain.

2020-08-17T09:38:48-04:00August 17th, 2020|career, Nursing, nursing history|0 Comments
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School Nurses as the New Front Line in the Struggle to Contain COVID

School nursing services did not end when our brick-and-mortar buildings closed in March because of COVID-19.

School nurses continued to provide a full spectrum of care in the most innovative ways. We supported parents as they grappled with the enormity of the sudden pivot to remote learning and linked parents and students to community resources that school nurses know so well. We continued care coordination, working with our most vulnerable students and families; created pathways to provide virtual school nursing services; and provided health education. Certified school nurses became contact tracers, delivered meals to students and families, and explained the transition from in-person medical appointments to telehealth. And we continue to support our parents in scheduling much-needed physicals and immunization updates before school reopening.

The front line of our struggle with COVID will now be at school and school nurses will be the first responders. Students and staff with one or more COVID symptoms may be asked to isolate for a minimum of 10 days following department of health guidelines. There will be mass absenteeism of both staff and students, as close contacts for those who have tested positive will also have to quarantine for 14 days.

This information has not been communicated clearly and consistently on a statewide level to our school communities. Youth community spread of the virus is already here and we are in an ever-changing landscape in terms of COVID-19 containment—we are chasing this virus and the virus […]

2020-08-12T09:20:23-04:00August 12th, 2020|Nursing, Public health, school nurses|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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