Honoring Nurses—Artfully

Artwork and collage by Rebecca Moses.

They’re not your typical images of nurses—no scrubs or PPE in sight. A series of portraits by fashion designer and artist Rebecca Moses depicts nurses in their own clothes, celebrating them as unique and vibrant individuals. The paintings, which are featured on AJN‘s May cover (at left) and contextualized in our On the Cover article, are currently on display at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital in an exhibition to thank nurses for their work.

The art project got its start on Instagram.

In the earliest months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Moses began posting daily portraits on Instagram of women who shared their lockdown stories with her. One woman who contacted Moses was the sister of Linda Valentino, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, chief nursing officer of Mount Sinai West and vice-president of women’s and children’s services at the Mount Sinai Health System. Valentino’s sister told Moses about Linda’s work on the front lines of the pandemic. […]

2021-05-05T09:06:32-04:00May 5th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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An Unimaginable Year of the Nurse and the Midwife

This year’s Nurses Week may be remembered for what didn’t happen.

For nursing, this was to be a year of celebration, of bringing attention to the vital role nurses play as the largest group of health professionals, providing most of the health care to the world. There were commemorative events planned for May 12 to mark the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale and in October an international conference to end a year of highlighting nurses and the nursing profession. In the United States, the American Nurses Association (ANA) changed the annual May Nurses Week to Nurses Month. AJN planned several articles and covers throughout the year, including this issue’s guest editorial on the first-ever State of the World’s Nursing report.

COVID-19 has focused worldwide attention on the vital importance of nursing.

While in-person events have all been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, what has not been lost is the attention to what nurses do and their courage and commitment to provide care to all who need it. And as with colleagues who performed their duties in other pandemics, combat zones, and life-threatening disasters, nurses today have not flinched in the face of great personal risk. I’m in awe of nurses who traveled from around […]

2020-05-07T10:18:35-04:00May 7th, 2020|Nursing|1 Comment
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One in 4 Million: The Nurse Who Mentored Me

Hostility among nurses is a well-documented topic of discussion, a phenomenon studied by both academics and hospital administrators wanting to create functional teams. Perhaps the remedy for healthy nurse–coworker relationships isn’t found by studying dysfunctional relationships but by observing the successful ones.

I was lucky to have one.

I excelled as a student, even with balancing the role of nursing student with the role of mother to a preschool-aged daughter.

However, academic success and my talent for multitasking did not prepare me for the reality shock of a new-grad nurse.

Thrown into the deep end.

There was a nursing shortage. I was hired to a pediatric unit before graduation, skipping the two years of adult medical-surgical nursing before entering a specialty that was customary for new grads at the time. I began my first job, pending successfully passing state boards, with an interim permit.

It was an era before nurse residencies or comprehensive orientations. My orientation consisted of accompanying a day shift nurse while she managed her patients.

After two weeks, I began night shift on a 30-bed pediatric unit during the height of the respiratory infection season.

Night shifts were staffed with up to three RNs, overseeing certified nursing assistants. Often the CNAs came from agencies, possessing varying amounts of skill. As a new grad overseeing […]

2019-05-08T08:44:03-04:00May 8th, 2019|career, Nursing, nursing career|1 Comment
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Amidst Nursing’s Daily Challenges, a Longing for Enduring Meaning

Early ideals, current reality.

I recently co-facilitated a breakout session at a national nursing conference in which we had the participants reflect upon life experiences that sparked their initial desire to go into nursing.

Some knew from a very early age that they were drawn to providing care for others. Others, like myself, were second-career nurses who had spent time in other professions before making our way into nursing.

We spent time talking about our early idealism about the profession and the various experiences or issues that have challenged our ideals over time. I was struck by the deep and broad range of emotions in the room: pride, frustration, hope, discouragement, cynicism, and longing.

‘An almost palpable ache.’

It is the longing that stood out to me the most.

The nurses I met in that room, and nurses I meet everywhere, certainly express longing for better staffing, improved systems that facilitate smoother workflow, and a supportive work environment. But these are all longings that tie into one deeper longing, which is a longing for enduring meaning in our day-to-day work—as hard as some days may be—and a broader […]

2019-05-06T09:17:18-04:00May 6th, 2019|Nursing, nursing career, nursing perspective, writing|1 Comment
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Recognizing the Value of Nurses, Health Care’s Often Silent Majority

“Inspire. Innovate. Influence.” That’s the theme the American Nurses Association set for this year’s Nurses Week. But for much of our recent history, however, nurses have not been considered particularly influential or innovative—despite the fact that during the 19th and early 20th centuries, nurses organized hospital systems (Isabel Hampton Robb), designed the public health system and implemented school nursing and community-based care (Lillian Wald), and demonstrated improved outcomes (Mary Breckenridge).

Somehow, as health care became more technology and intervention focused, we were relegated into the “background”—the silent majority at the point of care, but rarely the ones consulted on strategies and planning decisions. (My take: we didn’t directly bring in the revenue to support the higher cost of high-tech care.)

A dawning realization that nurses matter.

But I feel things are changing. Organizations whose goals were driven by quality care began to shift perspective when it became clear that nurses made a big difference in whether those goals could be realized. And as government and insurance reimbursements became increasingly tied to quality, safety, efficiency, and patient satisfaction with care, nurses began to matter even more. We’ve also come to realize that our costly health care system is not meeting the needs for too many Americans.

Now nurses are more visible than ever before. RNs in many areas, from acute and […]

2018-05-04T09:05:32-04:00May 4th, 2018|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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