Authors

  1. Szulecki, Diane Editor

Article Content

On this month's cover, a nurse checks on a critically ill patient in the ICU. We chose this photo in recognition of Nurses Week (May 6-12) to honor an underrecognized but fundamental nursing skill: watchfulness. Quiet evaluation tasks like reading monitors or noticing a patient's facial expressions are arguably just as critical as nurses' more complex responsibilities. Yet, as bedside nurses can attest, today's rushed and understaffed hospital work environment allows little time for this type of observational vigilance-and it may ultimately become a thing of the past. "How can nurses be vigilant watchers if there's so little time to just be there, really looking at and evaluating their patients?" asks AJN editor-in-chief Shawn Kennedy in this month's editorial, "What Nurses Do."-Diane Szulecki, editor

  
Figure. On this mont... - Click to enlarge in new window On this month's cover, a nurse checks on a critically ill patient in the ICU. Photo (C) Medical Images RM / Ed Kashi.