If you’re in the U.S., we hope you enjoy the long 4th of July weekend.
By Bob Jagendorf/via Flickr
Wherever you are, and this blog’s readers are sometimes surprisingly far-flung, we will be back with new posts on Monday, the 6th of July.
By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief
A perhaps idealized past: ‘Home for Thanksgiving,’ Currier and Ives lithograph/Wikimedia Commons
At the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., it’s customary to take some time to reflect on our good fortune—to give thanks for what we have. For many of us, it means being thankful for family and good health. But what about all the other people who may make a difference in how we live our lives, who make the world in which we live better or in some indirect way have had an impact on what we do, how we do it, how we feel about life or our work?
Here are some folks I’d like to thank:
By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief
August is one of my favorite months. Many people take time off, so the commute into AJN‘s Manhattan office is fairly easy. People’s pace seems to be a little bit slower; there seems to be less immediacy around responses to email. It’s a good time to catch up on reading manuscripts and other work I’ve had piled up.
If you’ve gone through your beach reading, here are a few useful collections on perennially important topics from our back pages:
If you’re just getting started in a nursing career, you might want to read a three-part series of articles, “Protecting Your License,” written by AJN contributing editor Edie Brous, who is a nurse and an attorney and writes on legal matters for the journal. Her series describes common myths about licensure and what steps to take to protect yourself if you are sued or brought up on charges by your state board of nursing. […]
By Karen Roush, PhD, RN, FNP, AJN clinical managing editor
via Wikimedia Commons
We love getting letters to the editor . . . really . . . whether it’s to agree or disagree, applaud or admonish. With some articles we actually feel a sense of excited anticipation—this should get some letters!—not because we like to create controversy (though we don’t shy away from it either when there’s something important at stake), but because we want to create dialogue among our readers.
That’s what the Letters to the Editor column is for: to add to the conversation by pointing out nuances, adding support from personal experience, expressing a dissenting view of a topic, or offering corrections or clarifications.
A good letter to the editor contains:
• a point of view
• a sense of the writer and why they were moved to write a letter
• additional information that clarifies, corrects, or enhances the original text (and the evidence backing it up)
OR:
• a reasoned, respectful argument (and the evidence to back it up) against some aspect of the original text
OR:
• a narrative that gives a clearer sense of the human implications of the original text
These are the main criteria we look for in the letters we receive.
We are glad when you enjoy an article or are pleased to see the […]
Revisiting AJN’s long connection with this vibrant student nursing association.
By Maureen Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, editor-in-chief
Opryland critters
I’ve said it a number of times over the years, most recently in my editorial in the April issue of AJN: the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA) is a vibrant organization and produces one of the most well-organized annual meetings in nursing. This year, it broke attendance records, drawing approximately 3,200 students and faculty advisors to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, where I spent part of last week.*
Supporting NSNA since its founding. The American Journal of Nursing has been a supporter and and sponsor of the NSNA since the organization began in 1952. The NSNA offices used to be part of the AJN offices at one time, and before NSNA had its own publication (Imprint), AJN published “The Student Pages.” We sponsor Project InTouch, an award given to the student who recruits the most new members for the organization. This year, winner Joanna Laufer from East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, recruited 130 new members; overall, this initiative brought in over 1,600 new members this year. Impressive.
Impressive, and sharp dressers too! The students I met—mostly junior and senior nursing students—were also impressive. They were enthusiastic, eager to learn, and professional. I have to say this […]