Making Relaxation a Priority as a Nurse

There have been a lot of articles lately about how people have adjusted their life priorities as a result of the pandemic—slowing down, going deeper into various pursuits, asking themselves what they really value in the face of life’s brevity. Many have faced terrible losses. Many others have made big changes.

photo by Meagan/via Flickr

The many faces of relaxation.

Now as summer really starts to get underway after this long and very hard year, it might be a good idea to give a little thought to how much we value relaxation. This means many different things to different nurses, as we learned back in 2010 when we asked followers on Twitter how they relaxed.

You can see some of the answers here; they included jogging and other exercise, spending time with family, taking hot baths, dancing, having a glass of wine, running a side business, making art, and spending time outside. In at least one case someone responded that relaxation was impossible because she was a nurse manager. […]

2021-06-18T12:25:27-04:00June 18th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Accepting Patients’ End-of-Life Decisions Can Be Hard

“The most important decision an individual can make may be how much treatment they want at the end of life.”

photo from pxhere

When it comes to end-of-life decisions, it may be hard for a nurse to accept to support only what the patient wants, but it’s also vitally important. In the Viewpoint column in our June issue (Viewpoints are free to read), Nadine Donahue, PhD, RN-BC, CNE, describes caring for an elderly patient in his home as he begins to lose the ability to breathe on his own because of COVID-19.

When she implores the normally spry, physically active retired executive to let her call an ambulance to take him to the ED, he refuses. Writes Donahue, an associate professor of nursing at York College, City University of New York:

“He’d always told me that he believed in a time to be born, a time to live, and a time to die. He was not going to be attached to a ventilator and in a hospital if he could help it.”

[…]

2021-06-09T09:31:31-04:00June 9th, 2021|COVID-19, end of life|0 Comments
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Summertime: Rest, Relax, and Write

With summer stretching ahead, I hope many nurses will take some well-deserved time off—rejuvenating bodies and spirits, processing emotions that were put aside, and reflecting on the long and difficult past year. But time off is also good for doing those “other things”—items that have drifted to the bottom of a to-do list. Perhaps writing is one of them.

As I noted in a 2014 editorial, there are various perspectives on how one should approach writing, and I list some from editors and scholars. I also offer what works for me:

First, spend some time thinking about what you want to say before you start writing. Know what you want to tell readers—the purpose of your paper—so that you can say it clearly.

Next, sit down and start writing. Write anything you want to say about the topic; you can go back and organize later. (Contrary to what many of us were taught, you don’t have to outline first. Some writers write this way, but many don’t.)

Third, leave the work alone for a while. Take a walk or do something else.

And fourth, go back and start shaping and polishing your piece, paying attention to organization and transitions. Aim for a logical flow of ideas. Weed out the jargon, too.

AJN has a collection of writing resources for nurses—we’ve made them free to access through September 1. You’ll also find some great resources at Nurse […]

2021-06-07T14:10:43-04:00June 7th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Caring for Caregivers—We Need More Than Self-Care and Resilience

Mural painted by critical care unit staff to honor patients who contracted COVID-19. The stars represent those who succumbed to the illness and the flowers those who were discharged from the hospital. Mural by the MedStar Montgomery ICU Team; photo by Cherri Walrath.

Self-care is not a panacea.

Since the start of the pandemic, AJN has received many manuscripts and queries related to self-care and resilience to prevent burnout. It’s not surprising, given that this has been a harrowing year for nurses.

But while self-care and resilience are important, and such articles are needed, all the self-care in the world can’t fully address the root of the problem—the systemic issues that lead to burnout. At some point health care administration needs to step in and become part of the solution and offer staff the help they need.

A CE feature in our May issue, “Providing Care for Caregivers During COVID-19,” highlights one hospital system’s efforts to do just that. The Care for the Caregiver program, which existed prior to the pandemic, was created to support ‘second victims,’ defined by the Center for Patient Safety as “healthcare providers who are involved in an unanticipated adverse patient event, medical error and/or a patient related injury and become victimized in the sense that the provider is traumatized by […]

2021-05-27T09:19:17-04:00May 27th, 2021|Nursing|0 Comments
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Remembering the Polio Vaccine Rollout, Addressing Concerns Today

‘A Most Welcome Spring.’

That’s the title of the editorial in the recently published April issue of AJN. And if you receive the print issue or go to our Web site, www.ajnonline.com, I think you’ll see that our cover reflects an image that harkens to the end of a hard pandemic winter of isolation and—for many families—desolation. Spring has arrived, along with a feeling of hope that the vaccines will allow the world to open again, IF we can do so with caution and are successful in vaccine campaigns.

Remembering the relief at having a polio vaccine.

I was in kindergarten when Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was rolled out. I remember my mother telling me that everyone was going to be getting a new medicine and I vividly recall my entire class lining up to get the injection from the school nurse.

I remember my mother being very happy about it because a boy in the neighborhood—a friend of my brother—had had polio and now wore leg braces and used crutches. When she saw him, she would sometimes say, “too bad the vaccine came too late for John.”

Nurses’ role in addressing vaccine concerns.

2021-04-26T11:50:12-04:00April 5th, 2021|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, patient engagement, Public health|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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