May 2020, Reflections on Nightingale in the Year of the Nurse

May12th is the last day of Nurses Week 2020, and it is also the 200th birthday of Florence Nightingale. The theme for National Nurses Week this year is, or was, Compassion, Expertise and Trust. These themes were exemplified in Nightingale's practice, and define what we now know as patient centered care.

For our last Journal Club article of the year, please read, Reflections on Nightingale in the Year of the Nurse. Nightingale's holistic approach to patient care has evolved over the years, to our present model of nursing practice. I hope with the many changes in healthcare that we will witness due to the current pandemic, that we can remember how one mighty nurse took on the system, and whose impact is still felt today.

Questions
    - How did Nightingale change the nursing practices of her time?
     -Why is it important for nurses, as well as other health-care providers to
      acknowledge Florence Nightingale as a role model?

Discussion
Covid-19 and the Year of the Nurse and Midwife. I acknowledge that the pandemic has wreaked havoc on many of us, both personally and professionally. But since I would like to maintain Journal Club as the epicenter of positivity, please share with the group any "silver linings" that you believe have come out of this time of great uncertainty.

Last Journal Club, please send your answers to melissa.luebbe@ctca-hope.com. Please send your ACE verifications to my email address with MAY JOURNAL CLUB in the subject box. My department is relocating and using inter-office mail at this time will be unreliable. 
Hope everyone enjoyed Journal Club 2019-20, if the health-care gods are kind, we shall all meet up again in September for another year!

March 2020, Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and Cervical Cancer

According to our next article, at some point, the majority of sexually active men and women will be infected by the Human Papillomavirus. As with many cancers, prevention is possible with current vaccines and screening. Please read Human PapiIloma Virus and Cervical Cancer.  There is a small screen to the right of the article, that has an interesting video about a study that included vaccinated and non-vaccinated young girls. A second short article,Opening the Lines of Communication about HPV, speaks to nurses who are asked to educate patients about the HPV vaccine. 

Questions

• Who is at risk for cancers related to HPV, and what types of cancers are linked to this virus?

• Who is eligible to receive the HPV vaccine, what are some of the barriers that prevent young boys and girls from receiving it?

Discussion Question

We all experience change and uncertainty in our personal lives, and at work.  What personal philosophy or quote do you have, that sees you through daily challenges and changes? At my previous hospital, we had a tech that would smile and remind us all to "start each day with a forgiving heart." These simple words would set the tone for our day, reminding us that whatever happened yesterday, to just let it go, and start anew. These words still come to mind each day when I come to work. The words remind me that I have been given the gift of another day, and a fresh start.

Please send your answers to melissa.luebbe@ctca-hope.com. Thank you Jolie Witt for getting me back on track, I have been really dragging my feet on this fourth post! Our last journal club article will be out mid April.

January 2020, Holistic Nursing

Happy 2020 - Holistic Nursing will be our focus for January. I try to select articles that are published within the last five years, but these two articles really stood out in their ability to capture the essence of holistic nursing. For the third post of our journal club year, please read Holistic Nursing: Focusing on the Whole Person, and   Holistic Nursing: Remembering Our Roots . For further information about Holistic Nursing, you can go to the American Holistic Nurses Association home page AHNA . We also have an active AHNA chapter at CTCA - Chicago, you can contact Cindy Ingram at cindy.ingram@ctca-hope.com for further questions.

Questions
What are the core values of holistic nursing, and how could they be integrated into our practices at CTCA-Chicago?

The second article states that nurses are experts at caring for others, and novices when it comes to caring for themselves. Why is self care so important for nurses and other health care providers to practice? What do you currently do for yourself that represents self care?

Discussion Question

As we have done in the past, review your New Year's resolutions from our January 2019 and see how you completed. If you achieved your goals - great, if not we have a fresh new year to try, and try again! Please share what your greatest achievement for 2019 was, along with what you hope to accomplish in this new year.

Please send your answers to melissa.luebbe@ctca-hope.com. I am a little off schedule, so our next journal club article will be in March.

November 2019, Debunking the Myths of Hospice

November is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month. " Every year, nearly 1.4 million people living with a life-limiting illness receive care from hospices in this country," said Edo Banach, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

Hospice and palliative care programs offer pain management, symptoms control, psychosocial support as well as spiritual resources to patients and family members when cure is not longer an option.  Debunking the Myths of Hospice is a very well written piece that addresses many of the misconceptions associated with accepting hospice care. Under the heading of "Caregiving" is an excellent article about artificial nutrition and hydration at the end of life. 

Not required, but additional information from a caregivers perspective, Family Caregiver's Guide to Hospice and Palliative Care.

Access the Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association link on the right side of the blog, under education you can listen to free podcasts. If you choose to become a member, they have free continuing education offerings at the Advanced Practice, Registered Nurse and Nursing Assistant level. I have been a member for almost ten years and find their website and newsletters to be outstanding. 


Questions

• How does Palliative Care differ from Hospice? Who qualifies for hospice and what services do they offer? 
• Why to family members and caregivers become so distraught when their loved one stops eating or drinking? How would you explain to them that they are not denying care by not forcibly feeding their loved one?

Discussion Question

Feeding someone is an expression of love and caring, to stop feeding a loved one is almost unthinkable. The following article was written by my favorite nurse writer Theresa Brown. No actual discussion, but you can add your thoughts to the blog if you like. I think what she has to say speaks volumes to us as nurses and as human beings. Love, Death and Spaghetti - I guess while you read this article you can also enjoy free access to my New York Times subscription, just please don't complete any of the crosswords 😊.

I hope everyone enjoyed this months articles - send your answers to melissa.luebbe@ctca-hope.com, no articles for December. Please enjoy your holidays and our third post will appear sometime around the first week of January 2020.

October 2019, CBD

By popular demand, our first article for 2019-20 will be about Cannabidiol, or CBD. There are a lot of great take aways from these articles,and I hope you enjoy them. When discussing CBD with patients please stress fact over what is essentially Junk Science.

I was able to find three very short and very recent articles that give quite a bit of information about CBD, and products associated with it. These three articles represent a good balance of research and opinion.  Cannabidiol (CBD) - what we know and what don't, The Nurse's Guide to CBD and Here Are 5 Harmful Things That CBD Articles Get Wrong.  After you finish the third link, keep scrolling on it for further articles about CBD. As a new expert on the topic, you will be able to discern fact from junk science in these further readings (which are not required).

Questions

• The basics, in one or two paragraphs, explain the difference between THC and CBD.
• How are CBD products regulated to the public, and how can you determine the quality of any given CBD product?

Discussion Question

With the onset of fall comes another school year. Maybe you aren't going back to school, but someone somewhere is registering for classes right this moment in order to enter the health care field. Whether you are a nurse, PCT, or Surgical Tech, this article is meant to be inclusive for all health care professionals. Ten Things They Don't Teach You In Nursing School.

Question - If you were allowed to add a course or topic to the education you received to enter your chosen health care profession, what would it be? The course you design can be serious or not. Back in the day, I would have appreciated a course on " Commonly Acquired Patient Stains and How to Remove Them From Your Nursing Whites". Or on a more serious note, a class lead by a social worker on caring for patients with toxic family members. 

Please send your answers to melissa.luebbe@ctca-hope.com, and enter your discussion response on the blog. FYI, I will be away for the next nine days and will acknowledge your answers when I return. If you have an urgent question please send it to my personal email at melissaluebbe@comcast.net. 

September, 2019 - Let's Get Started!

Once again, I am delighted to announce the start of another year for Journalphoria, the on-line Journal Club of Cancer Treatment Centers of America - Chicago. I can hardly believe that this will be our ninth year!

Last year we had forty-one stakeholders receive clinical ladder credit (2 points) for their participation. For those of you new to Journal Club, please do the following in order to be part of this group. 

Sign up for a gmail account if you do not already have one. Gmail accounts are free and allow you to sign in to the blog and post comments on the discussion board. Journal Club articles can be accessed from your smart phone, tablet or home computer. Due to security settings, your work computer may block access to the blog. If this happens, check your browser - Google Chrome and Firefox will work. 

Just like last year, we will continue with five posts.  Each post will have an article to read as well as a discussion topic to blog about. In order to receive credit for each monthly post, you must respond with a minimum of two to three complete sentences for each question. When answering the article's questions, the following are non-negotiable and absolute deal breakers.

• Bullet point answers!
• Copy and pasted answers that do not give proper credit or citation to the author.
• Copy and pasted answers that give credit and citation but do not include your personal interpretation or commentary along with them.

Receiving full credit also includes responding to the discussion question as well as commenting on someone else's response. These are important points when responding to the discussion questions;

• On-line courtesy.
• HIPAA - this is a public blog that can be read by anyone, including administration. 
• If anyone has a beef about workplace issues, do not use this forum to air them.  Please share your complaints with CEO Dropbox. 
• When you are blogging, if your name does not appear on the post, please include your first and last name to the first line of your response. 

When sending your responses to me, please put the article's month in the subject box - this allows me to locate your answers easily when signing off for clinical ladder credit at the end of the year.

This post is a practice post in order to make sure you can log onto the blog. For this month, please sign into the blog and introduce yourself, the unit you work on, as well as how many years you have participated in journal club. Briefly include any oncology, nursing or health care topics that you would like Journal Club to include this year. Conclude by acknowledging that you understand and agree to follow the above mentioned guidelines for receiving Clinical Ladder credit. 

I look forward to another year with this group. Thank you for being part of this special on-line community!

Melissa

Questions or concerns? Please contact me at melissa.luebbe@ctca-hope.com