Remembering Nurses Who Go Above and Beyond as Volunteers

By Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

A severely dehydrated patient receives iv fluids from Kari Jones, MD, as she is carried by a family member from triage to a tent at the Bercy CTC. Photo courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse. A severely dehydrated patient receives IV fluids from Kari Jones, MD, as she is carried by a family member from triage to a tent at the Bercy CTC. Photo courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse.

So another Nurses Week winds down and many nurses have been acknowledged for the fine work they do. But I think more recognition should be given to nurses who go above and beyond their usual nursing work and volunteer to help those in dire circumstances. This month in AJN, one of the two CE articles is called “Responding to the Cholera Epidemic in Haiti.” It details the work of one organization and its nurses. Here’s the overview:

While Haiti was still recovering from the January 12, 2010, magnitude-7 earthquake, an outbreak of cholera spread throughout the nation, soon reaching epidemic proportions. Working through the faith-based nongovernmental organization Samaritan’s Purse, an NP, an epidemiologist, and a physician joined the effort to prevent the spread of disease and treat those affected. Here they describe the prevention and intervention campaigns their organization initiated, how they prepared for each, and the essential elements of their operations.

The article provides essential information about such topics as setting up cholera treatment centers, assessment, rehydration priorities, prevention, enlisting […]

2018-03-28T10:25:15-04:00May 14th, 2014|nursing perspective|1 Comment
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A Hurricane Sandy Bed Bath

Amanda Anderson, BSN, RN, CCRN, works as an intensive care nurse in New York City and is pursuing a master’s in administration from Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing at Hunter College.

Hurricane Sandy/NASA Goddard photo Hurricane Sandy/NASA Goddard photo

When Hurricane Sandy hit, the bloated feeling from snack and rom-com binging proved my deepest suffering. Safe, dry, and bored on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I was little harmed by the storm. My commute across the park proved adventuresome, but I slept in my own bed; I had a bed.

As the city calmed in the weeks following, I watched my fellow New Yorkers erupt in volunteer revolutions. Feeling guilty about my idle skills, I signed up with New York City Department of Health’s Medical Reserve Corps, the organization staffing emergency shelters.

On my scheduled morning, I arrived to find the clinic behind an old door marked with a handwritten sign that said “Medical.” Inside, a crowded group of older professionals—MDs, NPs, social workers—listened as a frazzled and tired pediatrician gave shift report.

Few medical needs plagued the shelter, but one reported client stuck out—a feisty octogenarian evacuee, Ms. E. Her lengthy medication list suggested cardiac problems, and her arthritic frame limited her mobility. Stairs were out of the question.

Report dragged on. I left to find some work to […]

2016-11-21T13:06:56-05:00July 24th, 2013|Nursing|3 Comments
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Retired ER Nurse Not Taking It Easy as Red Cross Volunteer

By Diane St. Denis, a retired ER nurse and a Red Cross Services advisor for the state of California. These are a number of brief excerpts from e-mails she sent to colleagues and friends and family as she was deployed to Oklahoma. They have been very lightly edited to capture the experience involved in having to rapidly respond to a disaster: exhaustion, people converging from all over, what it takes to bring order out of chaos and then be interrupted by a fresh onslaught of damaging and dangerous tornadoes; meeting with both gratitude as well as distrust of outside help from very independent local people, condoling those who have lost everything. For other posts in this series by Red Cross volunteers in the Oklahoma City area where the tornadoes struck in May, please click here.

destroyedhomeOklahomaMay 22: I was called up to go to Oklahoma. I slept thru my alarm . . . and rushed to get to my plane, empty stomach, no coffee or tea. We landed about 10 minutes late, so I ran from terminal C to terminal B in Salt Lake City. I ran into some other Red Crossers in Salt Lake City as we were boarding the plane.

Finally, after driving around in roll & go freeway […]

2018-03-28T10:30:39-04:00June 24th, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Oklahoma Tornado Dispatch #2: A Nurse With a Focus on a More Orderly Disaster Response

The recent tornadoes in Oklahoma are the occasion for a new series on this blog. We will be receiving and publishing updates from Red Cross nurse volunteers in the coming days. This is the second post in the series.

By Sheryl Buckner, MS, RN-BC, CNE, assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma College of Nursing and a volunteer with the Oklahoma Medical Reserve Corps since its inception. Sheryl’s past work history includes critical care, home health, and home-based case management; she is currently co-principal investigator for Nursing Initiative Promoting Immunization Training (NIP-IT), which is a free Web site for nurses and nursing students to learn about immunizations and includes a module on mass-response immunizations.

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2016-11-21T13:07:15-05:00June 19th, 2013|nursing perspective|0 Comments
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Meeting Nightingale in Alabama; Where Were the Young Nurses? Further Notes from the Disaster Zone

Sue Hassmiller has been blogging from the tornado-damaged area in Alabama, where she’s volunteering for the Red Cross. This and all other posts in this series are collected on a separate page for easy reference.—JM, senior editor/blog editor

Finishing up some very difficult hospital visits with victims and family members at the University of Alabama–Birmingham Medical Center today, I saw the sign for the school of nursing. I remembered Dean Dodi Harper telling me last year of a man who had donated to her school what might be the largest grouping of original Florence Nightingale letters. A priceless gift indeed! Her intent was to transcribe the letters and eventually have an exhibit. As I saw the School of Nursing sign, the conversation all came back to me . . . and then I realized it was May 12, Nightingale’s actual birthday, the day we celebrate Nurses Day! Too good to be true: I e-mailed the dean and got an immediate response (I love those type A personalities!). She was away, but the assistant dean for clinical affairs and partnerships, Cindy Selleck, would welcome me—and indeed on this occasion the letters were on display in a temporary exhibit. Having been on a special Nightingale tour last year to England and Istanbul/Scutari, the words of this great mentor had taken on a whole new meaning for me (here’s the blog series I wrote at the time). 

Seeing this very special exhibit and Nightingale’s words on her very […]

2016-11-21T13:13:15-05:00May 13th, 2011|Nursing, Public health|1 Comment
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