TCU nurse practitioner students. “The importance of foot care for this population cannot be overstated.” In the heart of the Fort Worth, Texas, community, where the daily struggles of people without housing are vividly evident, a group of doctor of nursing practice (DNP) nurse practitioner (NP) students from Texas Christian University (TCU) has embarked on a journey to make a difference. Through the foot clinic initiative in partnership with True Worth Place, a day shelter for people without housing, they’ve established hope and healing with a compassionate service. The initiative began in e ..read more

A nursing student treats a volunteer acting as a disaster victim during a high-fidelity simulation at the University of South Carolina Aiken Convocation Center. Photo courtesy of the authors. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the United States “there were 28 weather and climate disasters in 2023, surpassing the previous record of 22 in 2020.” With the number of disasters increasing in recent years, preparedness is crucial. Many simulationists may believe that creating a disaster simulation is complicated, expensive, and requires a lot of resources. T ..read more

Putting concerns about the environment into practice. Matthew Lindsley Matthew Lindsley, MPH, MSN, RN, PHNA-BC, is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and is engaged in clinical trials as an oncology nurse at the National Institutes of Health. He spends his weekends working the soil, caring for animals, and volunteering with a sustainable agriculture initiative to improve the quality and resiliency of local food systems in his community. He is one of a growing legion of nurses who are putting their concerns about the environment into action both inside ..read more

Editor’s note: Hui-wen Sato is a pediatric ICU nurse in California and a regular writer for this blog who has gone deeply into the topic of grief, her own and that of patients and their families. Her insights reverse our usual ways of understanding grief, finding a generative energy instead of a wasteland. Here is a key passage from a TED-style talk (see video below) she gave at the last End Well Project conference in November 2023. End Well is “a nonprofit on a mission to transform how the world thinks about, talks about, and plans for the end of life.” “And so I realized that what I was goi ..read more

A qualitative study that looks at the experiences of nurses who have served on staffing committees. When I am faced with challenging situations and issues that involve multiple stakeholders, I seek guidance or information from others to make the most informed decisions. This is a practice many health professionals and researchers emulate, and it makes sense to do this, yet when it comes to the topic of nurse staffing in hospital settings, nurses are not usually involved in the process. If they are involved to some degree, it is likely because of a hospital’s pursuit for nursing excellence reco ..read more

Photo by Christina via Unsplash As a high school student, Gaby worked nearly full-time to support her family. She also helped care for her grandfather who was in failing health, giving him daily insulin injections and attending to his care. She dreamed of going to nursing school after graduation. Still, her classroom grades, which suffered because of her other commitments, were insufficient for admission to the nursing program of her choice. Philip, a high school athlete, was captain of a championship basketball team. He had the passion and personality to be a great nurse and wanted to follo ..read more

The March issue of AJN is now live. “Nurses play a critical role in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery,” says Linda M. MacIntyre, PhD, RN, PHN, FAAN, chief nurse of the American Red Cross (see On the Cover). Two articles in this month’s issue address disaster care: “Enhancing Disaster Management Preparedness Through Simulation,” which describes a mock disaster drill for nursing students in which volunteers acted as earthquake victims and local emergency medical personnel accepted patient handoff from the students. “Palliating Serious Illness During Disasters and Public He ..read more

A too-common scenario. Joe opens his eyes and looks through the window of his hospital room. He has always been early to rise. Even at age 82, he can’t shake the habits he learned when he was young. “I’m woozy again,” Joe thinks as he sits up in bed. His medication sometimes makes him feel that way. Joe presses the call light so a nurse can help him to the bathroom. The nurses have been reminding him to do that so he won’t fall. Then he reconsiders. “I can make it on my own. I don’t want to bother the nurses. They need to help the patients who really need it.” Joe moves to the edge of his bed ..read more

Image Brent Keane/via Pexels I have often heard health care professionals in various environments say, “If you’re nice to the nurses and doctors who take care of you, you’ll get better care.” As a bedside nurse myself, I understand the sentiment. No busy health care worker loves being met with antagonism or pressing demands that don’t strike us as critically urgent. But when my husband and I both became patients with serious illnesses last year, we learned the clinical pitfalls of being the nice patients. I am left wondering how patients should be expected or permitted to advocate for their ..read more

The research-to-practice gap. Today’s rapidly changing health care settings require medical and nursing professionals and students to remain up to date on trending research, topics, and evidence for guiding practice. While this may sound fundamental for nurses, multiple barriers make this incredibly challenging. Factors such as limited time, large volumes of new research to sift through, and experience with reading and analyzing research contribute to what is known as the research-to-practice gap. This blog post will explore how to harness AI and technology to gain a high-level and comprehensi ..read more