June is always an exciting time for AANP members, because we have our annual conference to look forward to during this month. If you are like me, your anticipation of excellent educational sessions is exceeded only by the opportunities to network with outstanding and inspiring colleagues. The conference offers us all an opportunity to get away and really focus on personal and professional growth in a way that is, while not uninterrupted, at least LESS interrupted than the usual workday, and that's really refreshing.
JAANP will have a presence at the annual meeting, including an opportunity to meet readers and contributors during the Thursday exhibit hall time. We will have a 30th anniversary birthday cake to share with you, and some special conference issues of the journal with guidelines for writers and reviewers. We will also have a poster to acknowledge AANP Fellows who made special contributions to the journal during 2017. We hope you will stop by the booth and say hello.
I have spent 6 months now under the careful and constant tutelage of Charon Pierson, who has worked valiantly to get me up to speed as she transitions toward retirement. Words cannot express my gratitude for the many lessons she has taught me and the competencies she has helped me build as an editor. It is a cliche to say that I have big shoes to fill, and it truly does not do justice to her enormous contributions to the fields of editing and publication ethics. Fortunately, JAANP has a very diverse and strong editorial board, and we will all work together to move forward to actualize the mission and vision statements of JAANP. If you have not read these statements recently, here they are:
"The mission of the JAANP is to help serve the information needs of nurse practitioners (NPs) and others with an interest in advanced practice nursing and patient-centered health care. Our collective vision is high quality health care for all by the patient's provider of choice" (JAANP, 2018).
These statements are part of our author guidelines, but they are also a good reminder for readers. The focus of JAANP is research and scholarly work by, about, and for nurse practitioners. Our readers are varied, but the focus of the journal is to support the evidence-based practice of advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) who provide care in every setting. We enthusiastically support APRNs functioning to the full scope of advanced practice nursing, nationally and internationally.
This month, we begin a new feature on genomics. "Unraveling the Genome" promises to be of much interest to readers of JAANP. The editors, Diane Seibert and Ken Wysocki, are well known for their interest in and contributions to the field of genomics. Contributions to the column from guest authors will be considered by the editors.
As mentioned above, the focus of the journal is to provide a broad-based scientific journal to APRNs who provide care in every setting. This month, Rachel Mack presents a qualitative study about the impact of upscheduling hydrocodone in a state where APRNs are forbidden to prescribe schedule II narcotics. For those practicing in the acute care area, Samantha Paramore's systematic review of the benefits of neuromuscular blocking agents in acute respiratory distress syndrome will be of interest. This article is also our CE feature of the month.
For readers interested in women's health or diabetes management, Quinetta Johnson and Diane Berry discuss their success in using a low-cost intervention (text messaging) in the management plan of gestational diabetes mellitus. Primary care providers will want to read Denise Coppa, Suzy Barcelos Winchester, and Mary B. Roberts' description of an academic-clinical partnership using APRNs with full practice authority to provide home-based primary care, thus decreasing emergency department visits and rehospitalization.
Our journal's scope is international, and this month we feature Jane Currie's qualitative study of what happened when legislative changes in Australia allowed privately practicing APRNs to provide care under that country's national health system. On a related topic of scope of practice, Lusine Poghosyan presents her study on the consequences of legislation in New York State to remove APRN practice barriers. This study does an excellent job of pointing out that the real work begins after achieving legislative success.
I hope you enjoy these new contributions to the APRN literature as much as I have enjoyed having the happy job of working with these authors to help disseminate their good work.