This week’s offering in homage to Women’s History Month.

We know from research that interdisciplinary bedside rounds improve communication and create a safer care environment. As noted by the author of a new CE article in the April issue, nurse–physician bedside rounding “has been shown to reduce mortality, medication errors, hospital length of stay, and hospital costs; improve staff and patient satisfaction; expand the health care team’s understanding of the patient’s plan of care; and increase both efficiency and perceptions of patient safety.”

Not your grandmother’s rounds.

In her article, “An Historical Review of Nurse–Physician Bedside Rounding,” Genevieve Beaird notes that while nurses rounding with physicians is not new, the nurse’s role today is vastly different from the early days. At that time, the nurse’s main concern was often preparing the stage, so to speak, for the physician’s appearance at the bedside. Here’s a quote from Dorothea Gothson, RN, in a 1913 issue of AJN:

“There is nothing more distressing to either patient or the earnest hardworking nurse than to be surprised by the attending doctors…. Equally annoying is the experience of patients and nurses being ready, waiting for the doctors, and their not appearing for one or two hours after the appointed time—perhaps not at all—thus upsetting the order of the hospital.”

Progress towards collaboration hasn’t always been linear.

The roles of nurses in patient rounds have undergone a number of surprising shifts reflecting larger societal trends as well as trends in health care over the decades. To see the practice in historical context can illuminate our approach today. As the authors point out, “[u]nderstanding the historical trends in nurse involvement in this process can shed light on the opportunities and barriers that clinical rounding presents today.”

The article is free to read AND is available for CE credit.