Maureen Kroning, RN EdD
Maureen Kroning, RN EdD is a frequent contributor to RN Journal with 18 articles published to date.
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Nurse Burnout: A Profession in Crisis
Tags: burnout COVID-19 nursing shortage Pandemic
The COVID pandemic created the perfect storm with nurses retiring early and even quitting due to the overwhelming stress caused by the pandemic. A Nurse Manager, two staff nurses and a new nursing graduate working in the acute care hospital setting shared their view of why they think nurses are deciding to leave their current nursing jobs. Sadly most nurses reading this article, will likely relate to the stories that have contributed to nurse burnout and why nurses are leaving the profession and why we as a profession find ourselves in a critical crisis.
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Promoting Respect and an Environment of Civility in the Classroom
Tags: behavior education emotional intelligence learning Nurse Education nursing faculty nursing students respect respectful behavior teaching
Educators today can attest to the lack of student respect shown in their classes. A lack of respect is a form of incivility. Since returning to in-person learning, respect has taken a nosedive. In fact, most of us have witnessed an increase of incivility in all walks of life. The question is, what to do about it? At a community college in upstate NY, the School of Nursing, Health & Wellness also noted a lack of respect displayed among students. The lack of respect was an issue the school felt strongly needed to be addressed. This prompted the creation of a Respect Committee with representatives from the Nursing Program, the Occupational Therapy Assistant Program and the Exercise and Human Performance Program to address the issue of student disrespect. To address the issue, the committee sent out a brief confidential survey to faculty and staff to investigate the prevalence of student disrespect, the facultys’ comfort with addressing student disrespect and established strategies for faculty to help guide them to promote a respectful environment for both teaching and learning.
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A Deadly Virus Provides Lessons to Learn
Tags: coronavirus COVID-19 Lessons Learned
Like most of us, the COVID-19 virus has forever changed our lives. The virus is a wakeup call to reexamine life as we knew it; it is a chance for each of us to ask important questions such as, what makes us truly happy, what brings joy and peace in our lives and how can we make a positive difference in the lives of others.
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Who Will Be Left to Care for You?
Tags: acute care care coronavirus COVID-19 healthcare workers nurse workload nursing Pandemic
It is sadly too late to help many our front line healthcare workers who have contracted the deadly COVID-19 virus. We need to find a way to help the rest NOW in order to save their lives and in turn they can save your life.
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Attitude Matters: Attitudes and Values in Nursing
Tags: attitude attitudes and values in nursing behavior conflict resolution nursing nursing attitudes values
Even with a shared set of values and behaviors, we cannot underestimate the nurse’s attitude towards: others, their patients, their co-workers, and the organization they work for and towards the profession of nursing.
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Use Critical Thinking: It takes Only a Second for an Error to Occur
Tags: critical thinking healthcare workers learning
Working in an acute care hospital, provides many opportunities for learning. As healthcare workers, we must recognize and confront situations that put our patients at risk for harm. A recent situation occurred in the hospital that did provide an opportunity for learning and the need for an action plan.
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Was “Winnie-the-Pooh” mentally ill? An Interesting Assignment to Learn about Mental Illness
Tags: mental health Mental Illness wellbeing wellness
When you assess and analyze some of our favorite childhood cartoon characters some of them display signs and symptoms of mental illness. This assignment engages students to learn about what defining characteristics to look for when assessing patients for mental disorders and just how subliminal messages especially those that are negative can be harmful to our well-being.
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The Future of Nursing Education: Heading for a Major Crisis
Tags: advanced practice advocate clinical experience future of nursing history of nursing nursing education nursing faculty nursing leadership nursing school requirements undergraduate
Nursing as a practice and profession has experienced significant changes over the years. For instance, in the 1800s nurses were expected to be subservient to doctors. Just hear what the doctor who gave Springfield Hospital’s first nursing graduation address: "Every nurse must remember that it is the attending physician's business to make a diagnosis of disease and hence that she should never hazard an opinion herself, under any circumstances." (Dr. Hooker, Springfield Hospital Annual Report, 1894). It would be interesting to know what the nursing faculty were thinking when they heard those words. Thankfully nurses during that era did not take the doctor’s advice and remained dedicated to advance and advocate for the profession of nursing. Around the same time that Springfield Hospital’s first nursing graduating class were listening to their graduation address, Florence Nightingale along with other nurse advocates, were making incredible strides to implement nursing education. After the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale recognized and introduced the need for formal nursing education but the education was limited to basic nursing knowledge and skills. As a result of the Women’s Rights Movement in the 1900s, the idea of nursing as a profession evolved into a reality. As society’s healthcare needs changed, nursing education had to change to meet those needs. There were however, challenges each century faced when trying to ensure nursing education met society’s needs and today, the challenges faced are heading right for a major crisis.
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It is Time to Recruit More Men into the Profession of Nursing
Tags: history of nursing male nurse men nursing school profession recruiting
It is a benefit to have men working in the profession of nursing. We need to recruit more men into our nursing schools and to work in our healthcare institutions. Both male and female nurses bring different perspectives and benefits to the profession of nursing and to the patient’s they care for. The ability of men to negotiate and obtain higher salaries and positions in both administration and nursing specialty areas may serve as the impetus to elevate the entire nursing profession.
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Recognizing Heart Disease As a Women's Disease
Tags: female diseases heart attack heart disease risk factors stress womens disease
There are noted differences among heart disease signs between men and women. Coronary Heart Disease can go unnoticed in women until they actually suffer a heart attack (NIH). Thus it is essential women are aware of the signs and symptoms, risk factors and healthy life style choices to prevent the devastating effects of heart disease. .Seeking early treatment when symptoms present is vital in improving the outcome of heart disease. It is important to teach women how to incorporate prevention strategies such as: consuming a healthy diet, maintaining optimum weight, maintaining an active lifestyle, maintaining both normal blood sugar and blood pressure levels as well as avoiding risk factors such as smoking, drinking alcohol limit their stress and any unhealthy behaviors that can lead to heart disease. Advocating for women and promoting education regarding health issues affecting women needs to be a priority so heart disease in women can be prevented and effectively treated.
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Teach Your Children CPR
Tags: adolescents children cpr teaching
CPR is a skill most anyone including our own children can learn. It is a skill that needs to be taught in all schools. We should not underestimate our youth being able to save someone's life by performing CPR.
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Going Against the Norm: Treating Cancer as a Metabolic Disease
Tags: aging cancer cancer patients cancer risk chemotherapy metabolic metabolic disease oncology preventing cancer therapy treatment treatment options
The current treatment for someone diagnosed with cancer is no longer acceptable. The focus needs to shift away from our standard treatments which so often causes pain as well as physical and emotional suffering. Emerging research about the body’s cellular metabolism provides new hope for cancer prevention and treatment. A number of mechanisms present in the human body are known to inhibit cancer cell growth by providing the body with an alternative fuel source, one that cancer cells cannot metabolize. For instance, induced ketosis offers a physiological means of regulating glucose metabolism in cancer patients while suppressing tumor metabolism and progression while ketone production significantly produces anti-cancer effects by shifting the body’s fuel source from a glucose dependency to one that is ketone based. Even while there remains controversy over the occurrence of many types of cancer, recent research has unveiled promising results towards cancer prevention and treatment. Emerging evidence indicates cancer is primarily a metabolic disease. According to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2014) research is being done to look at the connection between body weight, sugar intake, insulin levels and their correlation to cancer. Understanding the cellular metabolism of cancer is necessary in order to find preventative and holistic treatment modalities and for this to occur, a paradoxical shift in our current perception of cancer treatment is necessary.
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Let’s get rid of the “bad apples”
Tags: behavior bullying Incivility Lateral Violence leadership nursing leadership organizational Intervention stress violence
One of the most stressful challenges of the nurses working environment has become working among our own colleagues. Terms such as “Incivility”, “Bullying”, and “Lateral Violence” are now included among our long list of stressful issues nurses face each and every day. These terms include behavior that is undesirable for any institution and is counterproductive in any environment. Undesirable behaviors can involve not only nurses but any employee in an institution including that administration. The effects it has on nursing can be detrimental to the entire profession and even cause many to leave the profession of nursing altogether. We must begin to address this issue with specific interventions and we must do it now for it can and will taint the image of nurses who are smiling at work, providing caring, compassion, and good rapport with their fellow colleagues and have an investment in the organization to do well.
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Remember When We Were Nursing Students
Tags: clinical clinical rotations nursing school nursing students stress student students violence
I remember, as most nurses can, their days in nursing school, feeling anxious and scared going to clinical rotations to take care of real living patients and not just the mannequins in the lab. Most us can also recall how the floor nurses treated us as students engrossed in our clinical rotations. There were nurses who made a positive impression on us and unfortunately there were nurses who did not make a positive impression. Terms such as “Incivility”, “Bullying”, “Vertical Violence” and “Internal Violence” have become too familiar in today’s nursing literature. As an Associate Professor of Nursing, it is a shame to have to include such terms in nursing lectures and worse of all trying to explain reasons this may be happening among nurses and just may happen to them as nursing students. According to Luparell (2011) “Because today’s student are tomorrow’s colleagues, conversations regarding incivility and bullying should include specific aspects of nursing academia and the preparation of new nurses”.
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Mental Health Need Assessment Tool
Tags: assessing mental health status mental health mental health need mental illness patient assessment patient assessment
Patient assessment is the first step in the nursing process. Assessing for mental illness is necessary in order to provide safe and competent care. Using a tool that incorporates Maslow's hierarchy of needs to assess if a patient feels that their needs are being met or not met is a good first step to begin assessing the mental health status of our patients.
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It Is Time to Openly Assess & Discuss Mental Illness
Tags: assessing mental health status discussions mental health mental health need mental illness patient assessment patient assessment
With the prevalence of mental illness on the rise, nurses in all healthcare settings are going to be tasked with providing care for patients with a mental disorder. Thus, it is necessary to provide nurses with the skills necessary to care for patients with mental illness.
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Do We Really Know Who Our Patients Are?
Tags: caring connecting with patients fundamendals nursing patient identification pilot study task oriented who is our patient
The profession of nursing has become so task orientated that we often forget to ask, "Who is our patient? ”What was their life like prior to becoming ill?" With advances in technology and the business atmosphere of healthcare nurses are often not able to provide patients with one of the most fundamental core competencies of nursing, caring.
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Do nurses really understand Advanced Health Care Directives?
Tags: acute care Advanced Health Care Directives advocate AHCD AHCD education health nurse
As a Nursing Supervisor, I have witnessed many problems associated with patients Advanced Health Care Directives (AHCD). On many occasions, patients are asked about AHCD when their medical condition worsens, leaving education of AHCD lacking and often put to the family to make end-of-life decisions. Both nurses and patients have verbalized not understanding AHCD. At the local hospital not only have many nurses acknowledged not understanding their role and responsibility about AHCD, but they also do not really have a good understanding themselves of what AHCD are; therefore, they do not feel comfortable educating patients and families about this vital healthcare issue. Research shows that providing AHCD education is effective in changing not only the treatment preferences of patients, but their attitudes toward end-of-life health care (AHRQ, 2003). There was an eminent need to look into this problem at the local community hospital.
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