communication Archives - Page 3 of 4

‘Tables Turned’: When the Patient’s Family Member Is a Nurse

By Betsy Todd, MPH, RN, CIC, AJN clinical editor

Nurses are not always comfortable when a patient’s family member is also a nurse. In AJN’s January Reflections essay, “The Tables Turned,” a critical care nurse describes her attempt to navigate the role change from nurse to family member when her sister is hospitalized with multiple injuries after a bike accident.

Her sister is in obvious pain, but pain management is complicated by a low blood pressure. The author asks her sister’s nurse about alternative analgesics. She writes:

“The nurse, perhaps caught off guard by my question, answered abruptly: ‘I don’t think so. We don’t do that here.’ There was a pause. ‘Don’t do what?’ I asked. ‘We don’t do IV Tylenol,’ she repeated. She did not offer an explanation, an alternative, or say she’d ask another provider… I felt helpless, both as a critical care nurse and as a sister.”

As if to reinforce that the patient’s sister is not welcome to participate in care discussions, the charge nurse soon comes by and suggests that the author “step out to get some rest.”

Of course we don’t know the […]

Betsy Todd, MPH, RN2016-11-21T13:03:16-05:00January 7th, 2015|career, narratives, Nursing, nursing perspective, pain management, Patients|5 Comments

Resisting the Rising Tide of Parkinson’s

The Reflections essay in the October issue of AJN is called “After-Dinner Talks.” These are talks with a purpose, a form of physical therapy with high stakes. Writes the author, Minter Krotzer, of her husband’s long struggle with Parkinson’s disease: “Hal always says Parkinson’s is not his identity, and it isn’t, as long as he doesn’t let it claim him, or as long as it doesn’t claim us.”

Here’s an excerpt from the beginning:

‘I’d like you two to have a conversation every night after dinner,’ Hal’s speech therapist said to us.

. . . . Over the years, Hal’s Parkinson’s disease has made him difficult to understand. His vocal cords have restricted movement and it is hard for him to make it to the end of a sentence. He often swallows his last words or they just barely come out. Sometimes he sounds like he is underwater—the words indistinguishable from one another, blurry and pitchless.

But read the short essay, which is free. In just one page it manages to say a lot about chronic illness and the constant, conscious effort it can require of both patients and family members; about a clinician’s good advice; about marriage and communication; and about the power of language to keep us human.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor.

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:03:45-05:00October 13th, 2014|patient engagement, patient experience, Patients|1 Comment

Questions Dementia Patients Can’t Answer

Photo by Ann Gordon, via Flickr

By Amy M. Collins, editor

A few weeks ago I visited my grandmother, who suffers from dementia, at her assisted living home. In her room, my family and I noticed a complicated form with instructions for residents to get their flu vaccination. Residents had to fill it out, sign it, and bring it to the person administering the vaccine on a certain date. For my grandmother, this would be impossible—she can no longer remember what day it is, when or if she has eaten, who she’s spoken to within the last five minutes, or where her room is located.

When this concern was broached with the front desk of the facility, they seemed to be adamant that she needed to have the form with her on the day of vaccination. We could, of course, help her fill it out—but since it had been given directly to my grandmother, who was to say we would have ever learned of it except by chance? And who would make sure she brought it with her on the day of vaccination?

While the facility offers assisted living, they often remark that they are not a “dementia facility.” Looking around, however, one is hard-pressed to find a resident […]

Amy M. Collins, managing editor2016-11-21T13:05:26-05:00February 11th, 2014|patient engagement|14 Comments

Making It Safe: Skills to Promote Healthy Conversation at Work

Photo from otisarchives4, via Flickr.

Medora McGinnis, RN, has written several previous posts for this blog. She is now a pediatric RN at St. Mary’s Hospital in the Bon Secours Health System, Richmond, Virginia, as well as a freelance writer.

What makes communication at work feel safe? We can all identify situations that “go south”—we feel instantly uncomfortable in the work environment (or anywhere, really) if we are accused, blamed, insulted, or overlooked. It’s easy to recognize when our communication is not safe, not going well, and not professional. So what makes it safe?

Effective communication can only take place when all parties feel safe; we must feel comfortable sharing our clinical insights without fear of the reaction we might get from the other party. While we can’t always know what their reaction will be, by learning to make it safe we can learn to talk with anyone about anything. New nurses in my hospital go through a six-month “RN residency” program in which we meet once a month for education, journaling exercises, and sharing. The book Crucial Conversations: Tips for Talking When Stakes Are High was used in our training to help us further develop our communication skills in the workplace. As a first-year nurse myself, I’ve found that some of the book’s ideas have played a big role in my learning curve.

Mistake #1: Watering down the content so the message doesn’t get across.

When […]

Jacob Molyneux, senior editor/blog editor2016-11-21T13:08:00-05:00March 27th, 2013|career, nursing perspective|0 Comments

Well On His Way: A Nursing Professor’s Humbling Experience

Holding On / D’Arcy Norman, via Flickr

By Martina Harris, EdD, RN, a UC Foundation assistant professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga School of Nursing

It was 6 am and I was on my way to make patient assignments for my first semester nursing students. Inside the long term-care facility, the hallways were quiet, the majority of patients still in bed. I made my way to the second floor to begin identifying and assigning patients for my fundamental nursing students. Standing at the nurse’s station, my focus was on finding patients who would provide students varied opportunities to reinforce the basic skills they’d been learning at campus lab.

The charge nurse approached me and asked if I would be willing to assign a student to Mr. Hugh, an 84-year-old who was proving to be very “complicated.” Assuming that “complicated” meant that his care required lots of psychomotor tasks, I agreed to her request. She then explained that this patient had been using his call light frequently, but that each time the staff responded, he only wanted someone to sit and visit with him. Though this didn’t seem an ideal opportunity for a student to practice basic nursing skills, I felt the gracious thing to do was to take the assignment.

In the hallway, my group of fundamental nursing students huddled together, dressed in their white uniforms and nervously awaiting the start of their first clinical […]

Guest Author2018-03-27T15:40:49-04:00February 26th, 2013|nursing perspective, nursing students, students|10 Comments

‘Tables Turned’: When the Patient’s Family Member Is a Nurse

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Resisting the Rising Tide of Parkinson’s

Questions Dementia Patients Can’t Answer

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Making It Safe: Skills to Promote Healthy Conversation at Work

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Well On His Way: A Nursing Professor’s Humbling Experience

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