Many in Health Care Have Made Sense of COVID Through Art or Poetry

By Hayley Jasper. All rights reserved.

Since March, AJN has been inundated with COVID-19–related manuscripts from around the world, ranging from prospective feature articles to submissions for this blog as well as our Reflections and Viewpoint columns. Not unexpectedly, we are also seeing many visual art and poetry submissions to our Art of Nursing column as we all try to make sense of this pandemic experience.

Art of Nursing selections.

In the July issue, we feature a drawing and two poems that reflect the times, as well as a reprint of a recent post from this blog.

The drawing, Behind the Front Lines, is by Hayley Jasper, an award-winning artist who is a junior in high school. Hayley’s piece was inspired by her mother, who is an ICU nurse in a COVID-19 unit.

The poem “Alone, surrounded” was written by Dublin geriatrician Shane O’Hanlon. Behavioral health nurse Marianne Broyles wrote the poem “Using Time Wisely During COVID-19.” Here’s a brief excerpt:

And I feel very small, like a field mouse.
It is all I can do to
Blend in and hope the great
Horned owl will pass me over…

We hope both poems will invite […]

2020-08-07T09:58:10-04:00August 7th, 2020|Nursing, nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Nurses Drawdown: A Global Climate Movement for Nurses

By Katie Huffling, RN, MS, CNM, FAAN

When a small group of nurses first got together nine months ago to strategize how we could harness the collective power of nurses to address climate change, we had no idea what changes 2020 would hold for the nursing community. We were excited for the Year of the Nurse and Midwife and Florence Nightingale’s 200th birthday. What better time to bring nurses together to address climate change, one of the most pressing public health challenges we currently face?

Still the most trusted profession.

Now here we are midway through 2020 and the world seems completely different, with much of the globe still in quarantine as we battle COVID-19. But one thing hasn’t changed, and in fact the response to the pandemic has only made it more apparent to the world: nurses truly deserve the title of the most trusted profession. We are now in the spotlight, showing the exceptional professionalism, caring, and passion that are hallmarks of our profession. It is these qualities we are hoping to harness with the new initiative, Nurses Drawdown. If we can be leaders in responding to the global pandemic, nurses can be leaders in supporting solutions to climate change.

Nurses around the globe are invited to participate in Nurses Drawdown. The initiative is based on the science of Project Drawdown, a “research organization that reviews, analyses, and identifies the most viable global climate solutions, […]

2020-08-05T10:30:58-04:00August 5th, 2020|climate change, environmental health, environmental health, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Nurses: In the Face-Off With COVID, We’re Doing ‘Alright’

We did alright during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We’ve done alright during Ebola. We’re doing alright during COVID. We’ve done alright through war, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and typhoons. We’re neither politicians, nor business owners; we’re not in banking or finance (though some of us might have a side hustle or two).

We’re nurses, and we show up.

Let’s be clear, alright is not “OK,” it’s not “good,” and currently it’s “head barely above water.” Alright is persistence, though, and it’s perseverance. We’re all suffering. Those of us who have worked in past epidemics are having flashbacks, we still don’t have enough protective gear, and we’re scared to death of bringing COVID home to our loved ones.

Here’s a real gem, to boot: When COVID started and picked up exponential speed in the U.S., we were touted as heroes. And now as the waves of cases roll in again, because of the extraordinary financial hit that health care has taken we’re the first to be flexed off and furloughed.

“Hey hero, thanks for your service! We can’t pay you any longer. Good luck.”

Why we keep showing up.

But we’re doing alright, and this is why: There is a sense of profound meaning in the work that we do. As impossible as it is some days, when we provide patient care […]

2020-08-03T09:54:30-04:00August 3rd, 2020|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health|3 Comments
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How to Know When to Go: One Nurse’s Approach to the Retirement Question

Many possible takes on ‘retirement.’

When I meet many of my nursing school mates from (too many) years ago, conversation inevitably turns toward talk of retirement. There are many angles to this, from “Are you going to retire?” to “Are you thinking of slowing down?” to “What are you going to do next?”

I have friends who couldn’t wait to retire and wanted nothing more than an empty schedule to be able to make spur-of-the-moment decisions about what they wanted to do or not do. Others I know also retired fully from nursing but now are docents in museums, driving meals-on-wheels, supervising exercise in an elderly day care facility. And of course there are many who just “cut back”—they work part-time or per diem, but “keep their hand in.”

Photo by Aaron Cynic.

But the decision on when to leave a full-time career can be a difficult one, as the author of the July Transitions column, “What Would Ellen Do?” (free until August 20), points out.

Ellen Elpern was an advanced practice critical care nurse at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, a large urban academic medical center, loved the work and enjoyed working with her colleagues.

In making her decision to retire, she says, a […]

2020-07-31T09:55:24-04:00July 31st, 2020|career, Nursing, nursing career|1 Comment
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August Issue Highlights: Experiencing Racism in Nursing, Promoting Publications by Nurses, Much More

“Six of the nurses quit when they found out I was coming on because they said they would not take orders from me . . .”—nursing leader Bernardine Lacey on encountering racism in her career, as described in this month’s Historical Feature

The August issue of AJN is now live. Here are some highlights.

Original Research: Understanding Nursing Home Staff Attitudes Toward Death and Dying: A Survey

In this multisite study, the authors surveyed nursing home staff to gain insight into their perspectives on end-of-life care and to identify needs in such areas as pain control and palliative care education and training.

PANDAS: Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infection

A review of the pathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep infection, plus teaching points for parents and patients.

Historical Feature: ‘You Don’t Have Any Business Being This Good’: An Oral History Interview with Bernardine Lacey

This article details, in her own words, black nursing leader Bernardine Lacey’s experiences with racism in her childhood, education, and career.

[…]

2020-07-29T09:27:02-04:00July 29th, 2020|Nursing|0 Comments
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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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