Not everyone finds writing about stressful experiences to be stress-relieving, especially with a sick child in the hospital. However, expressive writing, also known in the medical setting as Narrative Medicine, has been shown to enhance empathy and resilience and mitigate burnout for healthcare practitioners, patients, and their families. A recent [...]
The concept of self-governance in nursing has been around for more than 30 years. Since then, the push to include direct care nurses and NNPs in hospital leadership and management decision-making has continued to grow. Self-governance in neonatal care and all disciplines of nursing stems from the premise that nursing [...]
As hard as it may be to read the title of this article, it’s even harder to hear “withdraw care” uttered in the NICU on a regular basis. Should we retire and replace this phrase? Should we instead say, “redirect care as appropriate?” The power of language Alexander Wolf, [...]
Aspirating and monitoring gastric residuals from gavage feeds in preterm newborns is common practice in the NICU. The aim of this practice is to guide the advancement of gavage feeds to enteral feeds. However, even today, we still cannot say with certainty whether or not this practice improves neonatal outcomes. [...]
Having a sick child in the NICU is a stressful, if not traumatic experience for many parents. Not surprisingly, most studies on this experience focus on how it psychologically affects parents in a negative way. However, some studies show the experience can also lead to positive psychological growth. A recent [...]
A recent, two-week-long study used daily emails and an online survey to measure resilience among NICU workers. You would be justified in wondering if the study itself was meant to test the workers’ resilience. Shockingly, a high percentage of participants dropped out of the study. All joking aside, this [...]
Sharing bad news and having difficult conversations with families are vital skills for NNPs. Yet, these skills are not often formally taught in NP training, leaving many NNPs feeling unprepared for the task. A randomized controlled trial published in PLOS ONE set out to answer the question, “Can a simulation-based [...]
As of Monday, February 22, 2021, we’ve lost more than 500,000 of our fellow Americans to COVID-19. It’s a heartbreaking and sobering milestone for us all. New COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are decreasing. Still, the numbers remain stubbornly high, begging the question, how are you and your staff coping [...]
In real life, neonatal resuscitation is a team effort and an interdisciplinary one at that. Why, then, are our experiences in team-based simulation training (TBST) so limited? A retrospective pilot study published in the Journal of Perinatology attempted to answer this question. The study assessed 65 TBST events held at [...]
