By: Amelia Carruthers,
on 1/8/2016
Despite progress in the care and treatment of mental health problems, violence directed at self or others remains high in many parts of the world. Subsequently, there is increasing attention to risk assessment in mental health. But it this doing more harm than good?
The post The traumatising language of risk in mental health nursing appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Amelia Carruthers,
on 11/6/2015
At the dawn of the children’s hospital movement in Europe and the West (best epitomised and exemplified by the opening of London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children (GOSH) on 14 February 1852), the plight of sick children was precarious at all levels of society. After a long campaign by Dr Charles West, Great Ormond Street hospital was the first establishment to provide in-patient beds specifically for children in England.
The post Charles West and Florence Nightingale: Children’s healthcare in context appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Rebekah Daniels,
on 7/10/2015
Most of us have vaguely positive sentiments about nurses, but at the same time, nursing is plagued by feminine stereotypes that continue to undermine the profession. These double-edged views are never more striking than in efforts to honor nurses, which often rely on emotional “angel” images rather than recognition of nurses’ health skills or tangible contributions to patient outcomes.
The post Overcoming the “angel” perception of nursing appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Meredith Sneddon,
on 1/26/2015
Last year was an important year in the field of public health. In 2014, West Africa, particularly Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, experienced the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus in history, and with devastating effects. Debates around e-cigarettes and vaping became central, as more research was published about their health implications. Conversations surrounding nutrition and the spread of disease through travel and migration continued in the media and among experts.
We’ve chosen a selection of articles that discuss public health issues that arose in 2014, their effects on the present and implications for the future.
Header image: US specialist helping Afghan nomads by Sfc. Larry Johns (US Army). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The post Public health in 2014: a year in review appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Rebekah Daniels,
on 12/26/2014
Nurses play a huge role in hospitals, clinics, and various care facilities throughout the world. However, there are widespread misconceptions about what responsibilities nurses have. Nurses are saving lives and making a difference every day in health care with little recognition from the media or the world at large. Test your knowledge and see how much you really know about what exactly goes into the job of being a nurse.
Featured Image: USMC – 07790 by Ryan R. Jackson. Public Domain via WikiCommons
The post What do nurses really do? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Hannah Paget,
on 8/21/2014
The anniversaries of conflicts seem to be more likely to capture the public’s attention than any other significant commemorations. When I first began researching the nurses of the First World War in 2004, I was vaguely aware of an increase in media attention: now, ten years on, as my third book leaves the press, I find myself astonished by the level of interest in the subject. The Centenary of the First World War is becoming a significant cultural event. This time, though, much of the attention is focussed on the role of women, and, in particular, of nurses. The recent publication of several nurses’ diaries has increased the public’s fascination for the subject. A number of television programmes have already been aired. Most of these trace journeys of discovery by celebrity presenters, and are, therefore, somewhat quirky – if not rather random – in their content. The BBC’s project, World War One at Home, has aired numerous stories. I have been involved in some of these – as I have, also, in local projects, such as the impressive recreation of the ‘Stamford Military Hospital’ at Dunham Massey Hall, Cheshire. Many local radio stories have brought to light the work of individuals whose extraordinary experiences and contributions would otherwise have remained hidden – women such as Kate Luard, sister-in-charge of a casualty clearing station during the Battle of Passchendaele; Margaret Maule, who nursed German prisoners-of-war in Dartford; and Elsie Knocker, a fully-trained nurse who established an aid post on the Belgian front lines. One radio story is particularly poignant: that of Clementina Addison, a British nurse, who served with the French Flag Nursing Corps – a unit of fully trained professionals working in French military field hospitals. Clementina cared for hundreds of wounded French ‘poilus’, and died of an unnamed infectious disease as a direct result of her work.
The BBC drama, The Crimson Field was just one of a number of television programmes designed to capture the interest of viewers. I was one of the historical advisers to the series. I came ‘on board’ quite late in the process, and discovered just how difficult it is to transform real, historical events into engaging drama. Most of my work took place in the safety of my own office, where I commented on scripts. But I did spend one highly memorable – and pretty terrifying – week in a field in Wiltshire working with the team producing the first two episodes. Providing ‘authentic background detail’, while, at the same time, creating atmosphere and constructing characters who are both credible and interesting is fraught with difficulty for producers and directors. Since its release this spring, The Crimson Field has become quite controversial, because whilst many people appear to have loved it, others complained vociferously about its lack of authentic detail. Of course, it is hard to reconcile the realities of history with the demands of popular drama.
I give talks about the nurses of the First World War, and often people come up to me to ask about The Crimson Field. Surprisingly often, their one objection is to the fact that the hospital and the nurses were ‘just too clean’. This makes me smile. In these days of contract-cleaners and hospital-acquired infection, we have forgotten the meticulous attention to detail the nurses of the past gave to the cleanliness of their wards. The depiction of cleanliness in the drama was, in fact one of its authentic details.
One of the events I remember most clearly about my work on set with The Crimson Field is the remarkable commitment of director, David Evans, and leading actor, Hermione Norris, in recreating a scene in which Matron Grace Carter enters a ward which is in chaos because a patient has become psychotic and is attacking a padre. The matron takes a sedative injection from a nurse, checks the medication and administers the drug with impeccable professionalism – and this all happens in the space of about three minutes. I remember the intensity of the discussions about how this scene would work, and how many times it was ‘shot’ on the day of filming. But I also remember with some chagrin how, the night after filming, I realised that the injection technique had not been performed entirely correctly. I had to tell David Evans that I had watched the whole sequence six times without noticing that a mistake had been made. Some historical adviser! The entire scene had to be re-filmed. The end result, though, is an impressive piece of hospital drama. Norris looks as though she has been giving intramuscular injections all her life. I shall never forget the professionalism of the director and actors on that set – nor their patience with the absent-minded-professor who was their adviser for the week.
In a centenary year, it can be difficult to distinguish between myths and realities. We all want to know the ‘facts’ or the ‘truths’ about the First World War, but we also want to hear good stories – and it is all the better if those elide facts and enhance the drama of events – because, as human beings, we want to be entertained as well. The important thing, for me, is to fully realise what it is we are commemorating: the significance of the contributions and the enormity of the sacrifices made by our ancestors. Being honest to their memories is the only thing that really matters –the thing that makes all centenary commemoration projects worthwhile.
Image credit: Ministry of Information First World War Collection, from Imperial War Museum Archive. IWM Non Commercial Licence via Wikimedia Commons.
The post The real story of allied nursing during the First World War appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Julie Fergus,
on 5/6/2014
Since 2005, more than 80% of Americans have rated nurses on a Gallup poll as having “high” or “very high” honesty and ethical standards. In fact, nurses have topped the list since 1999, the first year Gallup asked about them with the exception of 2001. (That year, Gallup included firefighters on a one-time basis, given their prominent role in 9/11 rescue efforts.) What many people don’t understand is that their nurse’s level of education is a life or death matter. In a study just published in Health Affairs, a nurse researcher found that a 10-point increase in the percentage of nurses holding a 4-year BSN degree within a hospital was associated with an average reduction of 2.12 deaths for every 1,000 patients. For more seriously ill patients, the average reduction in deaths was 7.47 per 1,000 patients.
For anybody who has experienced health care, these statistics aren’t surprising. Nurses are the glue that holds much of health care together. Nurse practitioners can effectively manage 80% of primary care with outcomes that equal or exceed physician care. Nurse anesthetists manage care during surgical procedures, nurse midwives deliver babies, and nurses provide care in homes, clinics, senior living centers, schools, and hospitals.
One of the things that excites me these days is that in all of these settings, more and more nurses are practicing integrative nursing – care that focuses on the whole person and uses integrative therapies and healing practices to manage symptoms, ease suffering, and improve quality of life. What does this mean? If you’re experiencing nausea because of your illness or the effects of treatments such as chemotherapy, you might be offered aromatherapy or acupressure before resorting to a drug that’s more expensive, may be less effective, and may cause side effects. If you’re anxious or having difficulty sleeping, you may be taught ways to breathe and relax or be encouraged to practice mindfulness meditation. Nurses practicing from an integrative perspective are eager to help you learn how to better manage your own health and wellbeing, not just deal with the crisis or problem you’re facing at the moment.
Integrative nursing is good for nurses as well as patients. I’ve observed that care settings that embrace integrative nursing are finding that nurses are attracted to work in their organizations, find their practice more fulfilling, and are more engaged and less likely to leave. For the past five years, I have co-led a new educational program at the University of Minnesota – a doctorate of nursing practice (DNP) program in integrative health and healing. This program prepares nurse leaders who work in clinical — as well as in community and corporate — settings. As the first program of its kind, it’s attracting students from around the United States.
Mary Jo Kreitzer is the Director of the Center for Spirituality & Healing, and a Professor for the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota. She is also a co-editor of Integrative Nursing, a title from the Weil Integrative Medicine Library.
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Image Credit: U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Eddie Harrison, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The post Nursing: a life or death matter appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Emily Smith Pearce,
on 5/14/2011
I really enjoyed the museums in Siena in part because they were small enough to manage with children, and not so packed. But the best part was their troves of early Renaissance art. I like the early stuff because it’s not so all-fired perfect like the late Renaissance art. During the early period, artists had figured out a few things about perspective, but they hadn’t yet cracked the whole code.
The art from the early period also seems brighter and more colorful than the later Renaissance. I find myself relating to it because it’s more like what I’d want to create myself. Perfection in artwork doesn’t really interest me that much, probably because I’m living after the invention of photography. So the beautiful but imperfect early Renaissance paintings (as well as pre-Renaissance works) have an almost modern feel to me.
Disclaimer: this isn’t an all that scholarly perspective, so bear that in mind.
St. Bernardino Preaching, by Sano di Pietro (above)—This scene takes place in the same Piazza del Campo from my previous post. I couldn’t find a better image of it, but in real life the colors are much brighter. The building behind St. Bernardino is the color of papaya flesh.
(detail from The Siege of the Castle of Montemassi, by Simone Martini)
The image above is just a tiny bit of a beautiful and famous painting. You can see the artist has made an attempt to show the dimensionality of the castle, but it’s still a bit flat, with an almost cubist feeling. I love it.
Our favorite pieces in the museum were the nursing Madonnas. I had never seen anything like them and was so moved by their tenderness. Whoever thought of Mary breastfeeding Jesus? Evidently plenty of artists have, but I hadn’t. I found the images so intimate, so human. So different from some other Madonnas where she’s looking away from baby Jesus, holding him like she’s not sure whose kid this is but would someone please take him?
Evidently there are a lot of these lactating Madonnas from 14th century Tuscany. According to Wikipedia, they were “something of a visual revolution for the theology of the time, compared to the Queen of Heaven depictions.”
Madonna del latte, Paolo di Giovanni Fei
“During the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, a decree against nudity was issued, and the use of the Madonna Lactans iconography began to fade away.”
Sigh. At least they didn’t burn them.
The coolest thing about seeing these paintings was how much my small children responded to them. I think the idea of baby Jesus being so like themselves, so like oth
By: Rebecca,
on 2/8/2010
Martin Benjamin is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Michigan State University. Joy Curtis, R.N., is Professor Emerita of Nursing
and Ombudsman Emerita at Michigan State University. Together they wrote, Ethics in Nursing: Cases, Principles, and Reasoning, 4th edition. The book provides a useful introduction to the identification and analysis of ethical issues that reflects both the special perspective of nursing and the value of systemic philosophical inquiry. In the post below we learn about the history of the nurse-doctor relationship.
During the earliest period of nursing history, nursing and medicine developed independently and had little contact until recognition of the medical value of bedside nursing brought them together in the late nineteenth century. With the development of the modern hospital came the introduction of the trained nurse, and patters of relationships in hospitals developed that affect current nurse- physician relationships. Physicians developed the medical staff, but as a part of that staff, they were not employed by, subordinate to, or responsible to the hospital administration. Physicians could and did, however, issue orders directly to nurses. The nursing staff’s position was quite different from that of the medical staff. Nurses were employed by, subordinate to, and directly responsible to the administration. Thus, nursing developed under the dual command of physicians and hospital administrators. The two lines of authority severely limited and complicated the decision-making role of a hospital nurse.
The Nightingale plan for nursing schools, which included instruction in both scientific principles and practical experience, appeared in the United States in 1873. Unfortunately from American nursing, the schools had no endowment or financial backing, and hospitals quickly seized the opportunity to gain inexpensive student nurse labor. Nursing education was essentially an apprenticeship, and, as late as the 930s, student nurses received little formal instruction in some hospitals.
Under the dominance of male doctors and administrators, schools of nursing grew, and they were not noted for encouraging nurses to think critically and for themselves. Students entered nursing schools already expecting that women would defer to men, and therefore, that nurses would defer to doctors. Adding to the traditional subordination of nurses to physicians, nursing school faculties often culled out overly questioning and rebellious students. The students’ socialization and education taught them to be deferential. Many diploma schools included the study of textbooks such as L. J. Morison’s Steppingstones in Professional Growth, published in a revised edition in 1965, which tells the student to cultivate loyalty, prudence, willingness, and cooperation since the physician has the right to expect such qualities. Further, the nurse must follow orders and uphold the physician’s professional reputation. Expected by society and trained by the nursing school to act as subordinates, most nurses behaved acordingly.
Yet tradition and nursing education alone cannot be blamed for the dominance of physicians and the deference of nurses. In the late 1970s, Beatrice and Philip Kalisch argued that a physician who seems himself as an i
By: Kirsty,
on 11/6/2008
When asked to think about heroic women of the Crimean War, many people will first think about Florence Nightingale and her tireless work as a nurse. However, there was another woman also doing incredible work looking after the troops: Mary Seacole (c.1805-1881). Aside from her work in the Crimean War, the Jamaican nurse was also a writer, hotelier, and entrepreneur. The below is an extract taken from The Oxford Companion to Black British History, explaining more about her amazing life.
She was born Mary Grant, but no official records of her birth or parentage exist; in her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857), she stated her father to be a soldier of Scottish descent (possibly James Grant of the 60th Regiment of Foot) and her Creole mother to be the keeper of a Kingston hotel, Blundell Hall, and a well respected ‘doctress’, skilled in the traditional African use of herbal remedies. Her mother’s guests and patients included British army officers garrisoned in Kingston, and Grant enjoyed a close relationship with the Army all her life. She had one sister, Louisa Grant (c.1815–1905), and a half-brother, Edward Ambleton, who died during the 1850s. Grant was educated by an elderly woman described in the autobiography as ‘my kind patroness’, and by her mother in cookery and medicine. During her teens, succumbing to what she called an irresistible and unladylike ‘inclination to rove’, she twice travelled to London, and in her twenties sailed to the Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti, trading homecooked pickles and preserves for shells and fancy goods, for which she found a ready sale in Kingston. In 1836 Grant wed an Englishman, Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole (1803–44), in Kingston. She believed her husband to be a godson of Lord Nelson, but this cannot be confirmed. Together the Seacoles moved to the port of Black River, on Jamaica’s south-west coast, to open a general store. Like Edwin’s health, however, this venture failed to thrive and by 1843 both were back in Kingston.
Blundell Hall was consumed by the great fire of 29 August 1843; Edwin died in October 1844, and Seacole lost her mother around the same time. Temporarily cowed by this triple blow, she settled in Kingston to rebuild her livelihood. But by 1851 she was off again, choosing Panama—then the Republic of New Granada—for her next destination. Her brother Edward had already set up a hotel at Cruces, en route across the isthmus to the newly discovered California goldfields; Seacole opened her own hotel right opposite Edward’s.
Seacole struggled to make the hotel pay. American clients, she complained, preferred not to patronize any establishment fronted by a black woman, and there were not enough British visitors—whom she favoured—to go round. An alternative income came from an outbreak of cholera during her stay: using her experience of treating yellow fever in Jamaica, she nursed all comers, gladly accepting payment from those with the money. She carried out a pioneering autopsy one night on an infant, the better to understand the disease and help her patients. Seacole was back in Jamaica when she heard of the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. Her immediate response was to apply to British authorities as a nurse. She considered herself eminently qualified, being medically experienced, independent, strong, fiercely patriotic, and eager to do her duty. Expecting a grateful welcome, she sailed to London in the autumn of 1854. She applied to the War Office, the Quartermaster-General’s Department, the Crimean Fund, and to Florence Nightingale’s organization. Perhaps understandably, she was ubiquitously rejected. None had the courage to engage a stout ‘yellow’ woman (her word) dressed in vulgarly bright colours, at nearly 50 well past middle age, ‘unprotected’ (i.e. without male relations to take responsibility for her), loudly insistent, and obviously used to being in charge. Seacole was stunned: she had rarely met what she considered to be colour prejudice from the British before, and found it impossible to justify. But the setback only fuelled her desire to reach the Crimea for the sake of her ‘sons’, or British soldiers. Entering into a business partnership with Thomas Day, a relative of her late husband, she announced the imminent opening of a Crimean ‘British hotel’ and general stores, and sailed for Balaklava in February 1855.
The hotel, fondly known as Mother Seacole’s Hut, soon became a Crimean institution. It was built of scrap beside a stream on Spring Hill, between Balaklava and Sevastopol. Seacole is mentioned with affectionate admiration in first-hand accounts of the war, as famous for her fine roasted bustards or rice puddings as for tending the sick and wounded with warmth and good humour. But Florence Nightingale mistrusted her, and feared her nurses associating with this unorthodox exotic. Nightingale’s principal objection was that she served alcohol at her hotel, and prescribed it to her patients. Nightingale aimed to change the system; Seacole simply wanted to make her ‘sons’ feel better.
A hasty evacuation of troops followed the war’s end in April 1856, leaving Seacole with unsettled bills and unsaleable stock. On her return to London that summer she was declared bankrupt. But a philanthropic succession of benefit festivals and subscription funds, patronized by Queen Victoria and other members of the royal family, ensured relative comfort for the rest of her life. In 1857 her autobiography—the first by an African- Caribbean woman in Britain—was published to great acclaim. The next quarter-century was punctuated by visits to Kingston, where she owned two properties; she unsuccessfully volunteered to nurse victims of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; she enjoyed what appears to have been a remarkably close relationship with Princess Alexandra; and sometime between 1857 and 1860 she converted to Roman Catholicism.
Seacole died in London on 14 May 1881, and was buried at her own request in St Mary’s Catholic cemetery at Kensal Green. She was mourned as a British heroine, then promptly forgotten, surely in part because her colour and defiant self-possession forbade her from becoming a fashionable role model for Britain’s young ladies. Recently she has emerged again, thanks to a reprint of Wonderful Adventures edited by Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee in 1984, as a peerless model of self-belief, triumph over prejudice and preconception, and sheer strength of character.
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By: Pamela Ross,
on 12/4/2007
We get letters. {}
Sometimes a story ends and you wonder what happened next. I fall in love with people I fall in love with in the pages of a book. I hate saying goodbye.
Because so many of you were interested in my Train Story-- see
http://writerross.livejournal.com/162689.html --
I thought you would enjoy reading a follow-up note from one of the characters of that tale. {} Who said words don't bring people to life? And now, Laura Seeley, the stage is yours:
hello from the Laura in this story
Hi Russell and Pamela, and thanks, Russ, for sharing the story behind the story with me. Aside from the fact that trains are my favorite mode of travel, Pamela so beautifully illustrated in her words, the warm and fuzzy that can be discovered tucked away amongst all the cold and hard.
Glad you guys met... Pamela, Russell has been and continues to be, one of my favorite humans.
Your story, as one of your comment-writers suggested, could be movie oriented, even a holiday story. And on that note may you both have happy ones.
Cheers from rainy San Francisco (and we need it!)
Laura
THANK YOU, Laura Seeley, for your lovely compliments. Oh if I could only be half of what you said. You made my day-- and this has not been my favorite day of all time. Call it...Grumpiness. Just spent the last hour calming down via e-mail with my wise pal Aud. (Thanks for being there.)
Thanks to Russell Shaw for making worlds (and words) collide. More Huffington Posts. Please. I'm on your Fan List. My friend gave me a mass market novel to read-- GOOD GRIEF by Lolly Winston- and I am just up the part where the main character is considering a big move to.. yes, Oregon. ;> I smell a conspiracy. You Oregonians are making Trails everywhere.
Thank you, Laura Seeley, thank you all, for coming to this Live Journal to let me know the world is filled with creative and bright souls. Picture it like one big train ride, tracks crossing in the wind, voices across the country searching--and finding-- a place that feels like home.
Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day...
CHANUKAH'S COMING. Candles, menorahs, gifts a-waiting.
Best Present Received this Week: I'm a lucky girl. Did YOU receive a Big Box of Pecans from the talented writer and lyricist KIM NORMAN? I did. With pleasure. Pecan-ic pleasure! Thanks, Kim. Be patient. I'm going to write a song for you. You deserve it.
Laura Seeley's work: beautiful, serene, makes you want to curl into their arms and just feel the love
