The tournament theme was “States Across the USA” and our ladies represeneted Wyoming–hence the cowboy hats. The tournament format was a “shamble”–-best drive and then everyone plays their own ball to complete the hole. While the win was definitely a group effort, they agrees that Marlies’ extraordinary drives are a great asset to the team!

Please participate in the RN Evaluation of Alec survey, which lets you give feedback on the usefulness and ease of use of Alec, as well as whether you have had ample help available to assist with this transition over the past nine months.

It’s easy and quick to give your opinion. Just go to AAMC’s intranet page and click on the orange icon at the top of the page–it will take you directly to the survey, which will take only five minutes to complete. By participating you will be entered into a raffle to win one of twelve Target gift cards.

So, whether you’re humming, “it’s goanna be a bright bright sun-shiny day” or “when darkness comes and pain is all around,” let us know by taking the survey.

Information About This Research Study: This survey is phase two of a three part study in which Registered Nurses will be asked to measure their perceptions of usefulness and ease of use over a one year period of time. The first survey was conducted prior to Alec implementation; this second survey will evaluate the first 9 months following Alec implementation, and the final survey will be conducted approximately one year after implementation.

Eligibility to Participate: In order to participate in this survey you must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Be a registered nurse who is either full or part-time, regardless of job title. Registered nurses who are tiered RNs and employed by AAMC are eligible to participate.
2. Spend at least of 50% of your time in direct patient care.
3. Employed since 11/01/09.
4. Completed all of your required Alec end-user training.

Those registered nurses who are not eligible to participate include:

1. Registered nurses who are agency or contract nurses.
2. Registered nurses who are on Leave of Absence.
3. Registered nurse who do not provide direct patient care.
4. Registered nurses employed outside of AAMC.

Participation is Voluntary: Please keep in mind that your participation is voluntary. Your job will not be affected by participation or nonparticipation. Your responses will be completely anonymous. Your confidentiality will be protected by not requiring names or identification numbers, having all responses go directly to Survey Monkey (an on-line survey site) and by, providing a report that includes the average responses of all the nurses on your unit rather than individual responses.   

Directions to Take the Survey: The survey will be conducted on the INTERNET. The INTERNET survey site will be available to you for a 2-week period staring September 2, 2010. The deadline for participation is midnight Thursday, September 17, 2010. You may use any of the computers at AAMC to complete this survey or you may complete the survey outside the hospital from any computer with INTERNET access, including your home computer. Please plan on completing this five minute survey during a single time period, as you cannot save your responses.

Eligibility for Gift Certificate: By participating in this survey you will be eligible to win a $25.00 gift card to Target at the completion of the survey period.  Ten winners will be randomly drawn.

Contact Information: Please contact Cathaleen Ley (Principle Investigator) at ext. 4824 or by email  (cley@aahs.org) if you have questions regarding the content of the survey.

-Cathaleen Ley, PhD, APRN, BC

By now you have had a staff meeting and/or have received the results of the survey in other forms of communication from your Clinical Director. The unit-level results tell you whether nurses on your unit:

1. are involved in decision making
2. are autonomous in their practice
3. have enough time to do tasks
4. enjoy their job
5. interact well with physicians and other nurses
6. are adequately paid
7. have opportunities for professional development
8. are satisfied with their professional status and with nursing management and administration.

Now that you are familiar with the survey results, what’s next? It is not enough just to know how you feel about the practice environment on your unit. We need to use your results to improve the practice environment. Our goal is to continually strive for the best environment for you to provide care. We need for you to become actively involved in identifying problems and working toward solutions with your nursing leadership team. This can only be achieved by our joint commitment and engagement in developing and implementing these unit- based plans. 

Again—thank you for participating in the 2010 NDNQI RN Survey!

-Cathaleen Ley, PhD, APRN, BC

Our own Dr. Briana Walton, Medical Director for AAMC’s Women’s Center for Pelvic Health, and Barbara A. Margolies, Founder and Executive Director the International Organization for Women and Development, Inc. (IOWD) will share their experiences performing fistula repairs on a recent mission trip to Rwanda.

Our speakers will discuss the how and why of fistulas, expectations post operatively and how nurses can get involved with medical missions. Nurses will leave with a better understanding of fistulas and how to care for these unique patients, both preoperatively and postoperatively. All AAMC nurses are welcome to attend, as well as AORN members throughout the state.

She forwarded me a speech given by Dr. Don Berwick to the Yale medical graduates this year. Dr. Berwick is a remarkable health care leader who led the Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) and has now been appointed to head Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  Please click here to read his comments and share them – they are brief, special words with a focus on visiting and caring.

I sent a copy of his speech out to our staff this past week and received many responses on his remarks and applicability to our care:

I loved this, Sherry. . . I especially liked the empowerment behind the statement to unlock the door for our patients.

This is a very thought provoking article. I highly believe that open visitation is a right of families and patients. Just this weekend, we had (a woman) as a patient. Her husband was contemplating going home very early Saturday morning. I suggested that if he did not feel comfortable with driving home at such a late hour, he could stay the night in a recliner chair. This eased my patient’s mind and let her know her husband would be safe. He was still here when I can in on Sunday night.

So true…This is all too real for those of us who have experienced health care from the other side.

I found Dr. Berwick’s graduation speech to be right on target. Caring for the soul was also addressed by Dr. “Patch” Adams many years ago. This is something that we strive to do in our Antepartum Unit every day. These women don’t require difficult nursing care per se, but they do need and crave someone who exhibits a demeanor of genuinely caring about them as a person. Taking the time to sit with them and just talk, have a cup of tea (tea sipping breaks down a lot of barriers), talk to them about their families, spouses, boyfriends, pets, jobs, anxieties, concerns, pleasures, hobbies, virtually anything tells these women that they are an individual in your eyes. It tells them that they are not just “the incompetent cervix”, “the complete previa”, “the premature rupture of membranes” or “the premature labor” in room whatever. Yes, nursing does consist of the medically technical issues, but it was founded on the nurturing of the patient. In this extremely advanced and technical era of medicine we would all be well served to remember that nursing started as a “caring” profession. A warm smile, a warm touch, and remembering that WE are the visitors in this person’s life can go a very long way toward helping recovery.

What a great inspiration for us to stop and smell the roses. I really enjoyed his speech. I think the staff is ready to embrace the new changes in our culture for supporting our families as partners in care.

I started crying half way through. It is a great story of exactly why we’re all here. Thanks for sharing. I’m going to print it and leave it on the unit for the rest of the staff to read.

Mrs. Gruzenski could not have said it better. It brought tears to my eyes!!! I have to admit, that although I had nothing to do with it, I felt a little triumphant. Finally, someone is sending the message. I would have much rather read about a woman who was thanking the nurses/docs/hospital for allowing her to spend the last few days holding her husband’s hand & kissing his face, but I guess we don’t  “GET IT” unless the story is gut wrenching.

The theorist, Jean Watson, shares about connecting with our patients by meeting them where they are. In the moment that we make a caring connection with them, neither is the same as a result of the experience; both are forever changed. Dr. Berwick made a caring connection, and as a dynamic result has been forever changed. Thank you for sharing this. As professionals, we need to allow ourselves to be open enough to do this very act of compassion and caring. 

Share your thoughts here.

-Sherry B. Perkins, PhD, RN, Senior Vice President, Patient Care, Chief Nursing Officer

Two contributors will be awarded $500, in honor of Mae Muhr, a dedicated Maryland nurse educator, through the Nursing Foundation of Maryland.

To review the 2010 Convention Poster Criteria, click here. For information about the 2010 Mae Muhr Foundation Poster Award, click here.

Each year, a silent auction is held during the convention to benefit the Nursing Foundation of Maryland, whose mission it is to promote and foster the education of registered nurses. Funds donated through the Foundation support nursing scholarships, research poster awards, and speakers for member meetings and the MNA convention. There are always wonderful items to bid on, from artwork to dinners out to mini-vacations at area hotels.

The MNA is seeking donations of new items, gift cards, themed gift baskets and even monetary donations for the Annual Silent Auction. All donations are tax deductible and donors will receive a thank you note from the Nursing Foundation of Maryland.

To read more about this important event, click here.  If you have an item or items to donate to the Silent Auction, complete a Gift Gathering Form here.

MNA greatly needs your help now to raise these funds for the education of registered nurses in Maryland. Whether you donate an item or participate in the silent auction, MNA appreciates your willingness to support and honor nursing. 

Hope to see you there!

-Carol Fickinger, RN

Several months after begining the New Graduate Internship here at AAMC, our new grads are well on their way to becoming seasoned nurses. With AAMC experience already under their belts–all of our new grads worked for AAHS while they attended nursing school–they hit the ground running.

And what a diverse bunch! Many have traveled the world with incredible stories to tell. Their experiences range from raising butterflies to riding elephants.

These highly motivated nurses are full of new ideas and fascinating dreams–one is (literally) dreaming about improving our lift initiative, while others are dreaming about the Ravens winning the Super Bowl. 

Please take a moment to stop and get to know this wonderful group of nurses! Above: (back row from left to right) Kristen Toulette (ED), Kathy Sowa (PCU), Lynn Canade (OBS), Mary Hall (MSU), Myisha Davis (OR ACP), Alyssa Finlayson (ONC). (Front row) Sherry Perkins (AAMC’s Chief Nursing Officer), Nicole Zentgraff (GSU), Shahde Graham Coker (PCU), Becki Derr (OBS), Brittany Foscue (MSU), Anna Drapalski (WSU), Lauren Shaffer (OR ACP), Ashly Waterbury (MB). Not shown, Rachel Fitzsimmons (L&D).

-Lisa Davis, RN

The teal ribbon signifies your support for ovarian cancer research

I have worked in OB/GYN for many years. I had experience with patients who were diagnosed with ovarian cancer and knew the symptoms well.

However, the signs and symptoms are very vague, easy to ignore, and likely to be mistaken for other less serious illnesses. I missed them. And I, like most women with ovarian cancer, was diagnosed at an advanced stage.

Were you aware that September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month? Join me for a 5K Run/3K Walk to Break the Silence on Ovarian Cancer.

Date: Sunday, Sept. 12, 2010

Time: 8:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

Location: Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis

Register at www.nocc.kintera.org/mdcentral

The Walk to Break the Silence on Ovarian Cancer is the sponsored by the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition (NOCC). Organized by local Chapter volunteers, this event celebrates our survivors, remembers those we’ve lost to ovarian cancer and increases awareness about ovarian cancer.

Registration fees include a t-shirt and access to all activities on the day of the event. Pledges and donations are welcome, but not required.

For more information on NOCC and ovarian cancer visit their website at www.ovarian.org or contact a very grateful survivor and AAMC colleague, Nancy Long.

-Nancy Long, RN, CRNP

But it wasn’t a police car or a stalled out vehicle. It was an accident that must have happened just moments before–I didn’t see flashing police lights or hear sirens. As we drove closer, my heart started to pound. There was a vehicle overturned in the median. All my senses went into overdrive as we crept by: broken glass, a hissing radiator, the smell of exhaust and tire smoke, a woman covered with blood.

Photo by Paul W. Gillespie-The Capital (Aug. 22, 2010)

A few passers-by had jumped out of their cars and were doing their best to help at the scene. “Do you need a nurse?” I yelled out the window. Seems like the answer should have been obvious, in retrospect. Maybe I was hoping they would say, “No, go on, we’ve got it under control here.” But they didn’t. And so I parked my car on the shoulder, told my son to start praying for the people who were hurt. That I was going to lock him in the car and not to get out for any reason.  

As I approached the vehicle, my BLS training came back to me—I assessed the scene. A couple 20-something guys were holding two small children who had either been thrown or rescued from the overturned car. They had some minor injuries and were clearly in shock, but otherwise seemed stable. A woman, hyperventilating and covered with blood, was being cared for by a person who identified herself as a nurse—I wonder if she is one of ours? Another helper lay on the ground, reaching through the car’s shattered window, to gently hold the shoulder of the trapped, unconscious driver.  

I was an ER nurse for many years and when trauma patients rolled in, I felt in control, prepared with my emergency drugs, my gloves and IV supplies, my team. Here, there was a man offering me a roll of paper towels to staunch the blood of the victims. This was much different than anything I had ever experienced.

“Does anyone have a first aid kit?” Three appeared, I couldn’t tell you from where. I started barking orders: “You! See if there are gloves in the kit. You! Get the kids away from the vehicle. You! Put this cold pack on his head. Stabilize his neck like this.”

One pair of gloves were handed to me and I gave them to the nurse caring for the bleeding woman.

I smelled gasoline. Someone yelled, “This is gas leaking, people. Get away from the car.” For a moment, I let myself wonder what would happen if the car exploded. There were still two people trapped inside and about ten helpers surrounding the vehicle. No one budged. Not even the man lying on the ground, holding the shoulder of that trapped, unconscious driver. I was in awe of the bravery of these people.

It had probably only been about five minutes, but it seemed like much longer. I heard sirens in the distance and ran to move my car so the ambulance could pull in.

I found out later that seven people had been in the vehicle when it lost control. According to the news, they were all airlifted to a shock trauma center. The cause of the accident was not known.

This experience affected me profoundly. Among other things, it made me wonder how often this happens. As nurses, we don’t just offer care inside the walls of a hospital. What about you? Have you had to respond to an emergency situation? Did it change you? Has it affected your nursing practice? Tell us about it here.

-Monica Mewshaw, MSN, MPH, RN