While working on a book project about the health insurance crisis in America, New Jersey-based photojournalist Ed Kashi captured the cover image in the ED at San Francisco General Hospital in December 2002. A terrified boy suffering an asthma attack, his distraught mother at his side, is calmed by triage nurse Dan Merer's eye-level gestures and instructions on achieving the best effect from the nebulizer.
"Asthma is such a critical issue, particularly in San Francisco's African American community," Kashi explained recently in an e-mail message while on assignment in India. (The San Francisco Asthma Task Force estimates that one in five children and one in 10 adults in the city are affected by the disease.) "So I felt this situation was important on many levels," Kashi said.
In the photo on this page, hospice aid Debbie Schaffer cares for 95-year-old Lova McNair. "In rural West Virginia, people live and die the old-fashioned way," Kashi said. "The Hospice Care Corporation sends health care workers into homes to make sure people can meet a dignified end, surrounded by their families."
The cover photograph won first place in the 2007 "Faces of Caring: Nurses at Work" photography contest sponsored by AJN and the New York University (NYU) College of Nursing, with support from Johnson and Johnson's Campaign for Nursing's Future, the Beatrice Renfield Foundation, and the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence. More than 120 international photographs of working nurses were submitted by amateur and professional photographers; 26 were selected for an exhibition mounted at NYU in May that is now touring the country. For information on booking the exhibition, call Amanda Geer at (646) 674-6609.
Born in New York City and a 1979 photojournalism graduate of Syracuse University, Kashi has won numerous awards and is an author, teacher, and documentary filmmaker. His photographs have appeared in such publications as National Geographic, the New York Times Magazine, Time, and Newsweek. He produced two long-term projects that included book, photography, and film components and were traveling exhibitions: "Aging in America: The Years Ahead" and "Denied: The Crisis of America's Uninsured." His photographs have been featured prominently in AJN's series on geriatric nursing, A New Look at the Old.
Alison Bulman
senior editorial coordinator