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Gratitude and Compassion

A troubled life, a difficult death

Editor’s note: National Homelessness Awareness Week is November 10-18. Like many of our homeless patients, “Sarah” was a bundle of contradictions. She came from money, got a good…

Acts of kindness

Many of us have lasting memories of a few special patients. For me, Joe is one of those patients. The day he was admitted, Joe was one of…

An encouraging word

Has a compliment ever made your day? Perhaps it was just what you needed to hear to raise your self-confidence a notch or to encourage you in your…
elderly couple song together

And the music plays on…

In the mid-1970s, I was a graduate nurse starting my career at a large, urban hospital. One of my patients, an elderly man named Eddie, had just been…

Battlefield nursing at the Boston Marathon

Three yellow balloons danced through the air, hovering over the finish line after being released by the bomb blast that brought the 2013 Boston Marathon to a catastrophic…

Building a sense of community on nursing units

Jeff Rawson, a new nurse graduate, works on a behavioral health unit. His manager believes his transition is going well—until Jeff asks to transfer to another unit. When…

Building moral resilience to neutralize moral distress

Moral distress occurs when one recognizes one’s moral responsibility in a situation; evaluates the various courses of action; and identifies, in accordance with one’s beliefs, the morally correct…
caring-during-covid-19

Caring during COVID-19

Editor’s note: This is an early release of a web exclusive article for the April 2021 issue of American Nurse Journal. At the bottom of the article, the…

Caring under pressure

Compassion is an essential ingredient for great nursing. Without compassion, you might as well come up with another word for nurse. Recently, I visited a local emergency department…

Clinical humility: A humbled patient care

There’s a story that goes something like this: An elderly man falls down a flight of stairs at home. In the emergency department, he’s found to have four…
UofL

Compassion fatigue: Are you at risk?

For many of us, nursing isn’t just what we do; it’s who we are. Most of us became nurses because we care about people and want to make…

Eye of the beholder: Grand rounds at the museum

“What do you see in his eyes?” asks Dr. Rothenberg. After a brief pause, someone replies, “He looks sad.” Another states, “He’s kind of emaciated.” After directing us…
storytelling

From our readers: One patient’s story

Eric’s* storytelling made a difference in my nursing practice. Eric was a 27-year-old African American patient with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), who was admitted to the nursing home…
The art of self-disclosure

From our readers: The art of self-disclosure

One aspect of the “art” of nursing is appropriate self-disclosure. Nurses and other healthcare providers often have an opportunity to share information about their own health to help…
nurse care caring present heart

From our readers…A cycle of caring

It began a long time ago A woman walks through the dark room, with just a candle to light her way The soldiers can sense her presence She…
crib iron bedside nurse care

From our readers…At the Bedside

As my parents were approaching the age of downsizing their earthly possessions, I became the recipient of the generational family crib. It was the wrought iron crib that…
Fruits and Vegetables are dietary Staples of Caring for patients with metabolic syndrome

From our readers…Hunger advocacy for nurses

Since the mid-1990s, the number of hungry people worldwide has been steadily increasing. Currently about 925 million people worldwide are hungry—about 1 in 7 of the global population.…
nonadherent refuse treatment nurse challenged challenge

From our readers…Nonadherent or compassion challenged?

Over the years nurses have labeled patients who choose (knowingly or unknowingly) to disregard instructions that could potentially alter their health condition toward a “better outcome” as noncompliant,…
companion dog art sketch parkinsons MET

From our readers…The Companion

Parkinson’s had taken away almost everything she loved. She, the artist, had spent her younger days in the upper rooms of McGuffey painting watercolors of Piedmont’s rolling hills…
nurse grief overcome

From our readers…The nature of grief

A wise person once said, “Grief is not a disease or pathology to be cured. Grief is the tangible evidence that we’ve cared and loved someone.” The author…

Give yourself the gift of self-affirmation

We’ve all had days that push us toward the edge. The chaos likely starts around mid-shift and may go something like this: Radiology calls for bed 3, bed 6…
rebuild-trust

How to Rebuild America’s Trust During COVID-19

Start with Nursing The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shock waves across the nation. With devastation all around us, people’s lives and livelihoods have been on the line. They…

Keeping your compassion

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of your shift when you make a mistake in the care you’re providing—and you wonder, “Am I losing my compassion?”…

Laugh, nurse, laugh!

Victor Borge, the famous Danish comedian, pianist, and conductor once said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” Infusing laughter and humor into your work life is a…

Look for inspiration in your fellow nurses

In a perfect world, we nurses would be inspired daily by our patient experiences. They would come in such abundance that overtime, computer crashes, and 10-minute meal breaks…
constant nurse attention surgeon

Mindful Appreciation

Tip 6 of 6 Mindfulness Exercises You Can Try Today In this last exercise, all you have to do is notice 5 things in your day that usually…
mindful breathing exercises

Mindful Breathing

Tip 1 of 6 Mindfulness Exercises You Can Try Today This exercise can be done standing up or sitting down, and pretty much anywhere at any time. If…
nurses mindful listening nursing

Mindful Listening

Tip 4 of 6 Mindfulness Exercises You Can Try Today This exercise is designed to open your ears to sound in a non-judgmental way, and indeed to train…
emergency department nurse

My First Day in the ED

Note: This article was written before Kenneth graduated from nursing school. My first experience in an emergency department (ED) setting happened last week at Frankfort Regional Medical Center…
nurse-heroes

Nurse heroes of the Pandemic

Nurses share a common theme: Hope. Be prepared, be strong, and don’t panic Crystal Davis Campbell, BSN, RN Staff nurse, medical ICU, Vidant Medical Center Greenville, North Carolina…

Nurturing the tree of life

In the United States, more than 15,000 families a year make the difficult decision to donate their loved ones’ organs. One day in August 2005, two of these…

Recovery lessons from the Sandy Hook trauma

Children are people with small hearts and big emotions that often come from the people around them, particularly family members. As a pediatric nurse and mother of two…
nurse reflection

Reflections on the heart of nursing

In 1995, I toured the Florence Nightingale Museum in London. On the walls were letters that chronicled a lifetime of dedication, spent caring for others—letters that were preserved…

Shaving as a metaphor for nursing

Over the course of history, people have used metaphors to explain, contrive, reflect, and refute human phenomena. Health care (and all its challenges) has stimulated prolific metaphors to…
flame nurse condolence

Silence and Solace

“We think she’s gone,” he said. It was 6:20 p.m. I was walking down the hall on the med-surg unit, and turned to face a middle-aged man with…

The Bedpan and its Significance

During the holiday doldrums I came across a 2015 Smithsonian magazine article entitled “The strange saga of George Washington’s bedpan.” The article was a sort of a biography…
nurse story remembering teach

The little things we do

In December 2001, the graduating class of New York University’s College of Nursing asked me to give a speech during their pinning ceremony. As part of nursing education,…
Positive

The power of the positive

Being positive in a negative situation is not naïve. It’s leadership. — Ralph S. Marston, Jr., author and publisher of The Daily Motivator website Nurses may encounter many challenges and stressors…

The will to live – and living well

Groucho Marx said, “Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.” When we mentioned this to a friend of ours, he retorted, “Yes—and life is the chief cause of death!” In writing…

Uplifting nurses

Associations respond to member needs in a pandemic. In 2020, what kept me up at night was nurses’ well-being and how they’ve been dealing with the impact of…

Volunteering resources

More than 1.3 billion people across the world lack access to basic healthcare services – mostly because the number of healthcare workers is not rising fast enough to…

What you can learn from failure

Editor’s note: At American Nurse Today, we believe every nurse can be a leader. Rose Sherman, founder of the Emerging RN Leader blog (www.emergingrnleader.com), contributes articles on a…

You can help stop the cycle of teen bullying

Bullying refers to repeated negative activity or aggression intended to harm or bother someone that the aggressor perceives as less powerful. In many cases, bullying victims are harassed…
nurse make difference

You make a difference

Honoring nurses and our profession in May This Nurses Month, we honor RNs for their skillful, creative, and compassionate care during the most significant public health crisis in…

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Which of the following statements accurately describes hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)?