Safe and Less Safe Breast Milk Sharing, Plus Some Notable New Blog Posts by Nurses

Figure. The milk room, Mothers' Milk Bureau, Children's Welfare Association, New York City, 1930s, where breast milk donations were collected under careful supervision. Photo from the AJN archives. Figure. The milk room, Mothers’ Milk Bureau, Children’s Welfare Association, New York City, 1930s, where breast milk donations were collected under careful supervision. Photo from the AJN archives.

By Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

Today’s post was going to consist solely of links to a few posts by nurse bloggers that seemed worth your attention. But first, since everyone is tweeting about it this morning:

Breast milk sharing. Breast milk purchased or otherwise obtained via the Web can be tainted, according to a New York Times article today summarizing a new study published in Pediatrics. Money quote:

The report found that breast milk bought from two popular Web sites was often contaminated with high levels of bacteria, including, in a few instances, salmonella. The amounts detected in some samples were sufficient to sicken a child.

It so happens that AJN covered breast milk sharing just last year in an AJN Reports article called “Breast Milk Sharing is Making a Comeback, But Should It?” We looked at the […]

2016-11-21T13:06:14-05:00October 21st, 2013|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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At Denver Nurse Exec Mtg: Sully on Sources of Errors, Chow on Crucial Role of Patients and Families

Some quick take-homes from AJN’s editor-in-chief, Shawn Kennedy:

690px-Plane_crash_into_Hudson_Rivercroped via Wikipedia

I’m in Denver at the annual meeting of the American Association of Nurse Executives (AONE), the organization comprised mostly of hospital nurse executives, administrators, and managers. As you can imagine, the focus is on leadership.

Captain “Sully” Sullenberger, the former US Airways pilot who safely landed a disabled passenger plane on the Hudson River in New York City in 2009, was the featured keynote speaker. He of course talked about the event that launched his second career as a speaker, author, and safety expert, but his message was really about leading in challenging times. Some key messages:

  • His success in landing the plane was the result of teamwork, with everyone executing what they had learned and practiced.
  • Core values must be made real on a daily basis in organizations.
  • Errors and bad outcomes are almost never the result of a single person or event, but a result of a cascading chain of events or failures.

AORN meeting cover image AORN meeting cover image

Marilyn Chow, who spoke only briefly after accepting the AONE 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, could as easily have been the keynote speaker at the meeting. Chow, who is vice-president, national patient care services, Kaiser Permanente, spoke with humor and passion about her values and where she thinks nursing’s values should be. She told of her 87-year-old mother’s great joy […]

2018-03-13T10:49:45-04:00March 22nd, 2013|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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Saving SimBaby – Teaching Nurses to Speak Up

AJNReportsNov09The baby’s condition is going downhill fast. A medical team surrounds the infant, tersely exchanging instructions. The gripping scenario has the participants’ hearts beating fast, but the baby on the table is SimBaby, a manikin with sophisticated robotics that’s used in health care simulation training.

As in a real situation, “there is adrenalin in a simulation,” explains Elaine Beardsley, MN, RN, clinical nurse specialist in the pediatric simulation program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “Even though it is a simulated environment, people get nervous. People talk more.” However, Beardsley says, the structured communication training within the simulation “cuts the chatter.”

The November AJN Reports focuses on ways that SimBaby is helping teams of nurses and physicians at Seattle’s Children’s Hospital learn to avoid the kinds of communication breakdowns that, studies have shown, can lead to errors in stressful situations. The training includes creating a safe environment in which nurses and residents are encouraged to speak up to physicians “when they perceive mistakes being made.”

“Simulation, in my mind, is about getting us to communicate better,” says Jennifer Reid, MD, assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Hospital and codirector of the hospital’s ED simulation program. “Our training is such that physicians and nurses are usually educated, trained, and practice more or less in parallel. Simulation is an opportunity-a rare one-for us to learn and train together, working consciously on our communication skills. When else do I […]

2016-11-21T13:21:09-05:00November 11th, 2009|students|1 Comment
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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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