We expected to celebrate nurses this year, and the world conspired to make it so. There’s never been a more important time to be a nurse, and there’s never been a more special time to be a Hopkins nurse.
We created new series like Admissions Talks, podcasts like COVID Considerations and Aging Fast and Slow, hosted American Nurse Influencers (a column in My American Nurse), launched the latest #WeGotThis videos with some spectacular men in nursing, created some eye-opening anatomies, and developed a whole host of virtual events. We even redesigned our magazine and blog website.
With that in mind, here are the editor’s picks of the best blogs of 2020 full of the heart, grit, and cutting-edge research that make our community incredible. Side note, the choices were hard, and have you noticed the best blogs list gets longer every year?
#22
A Dive into the State of the World’s Nursing Report, 2020, from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing
Podcast featuring Dean Patricia Davidson, Leslie Mancuso, JHPIEGO CEO, Peter Johnson, Sr. Director of Nursing and Midwifery at JHPIEGO, and Nancy Reynolds, Associate Dean of Global Affairs.
#21
Nurse Practitioner, one of the top 10 “Best Jobs” 5 of the last 6 years
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
“Nurse practitioner” has been ranked one of the top 10 “best jobs” for five of the last six years by U.S. News & World Report. It’s also the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, and nurses are the “most trusted profession” for 18 years.
#20
Who’s Caring for Black Nurses? We Challenge Our Colleagues to be Allies
By: Dr. Patty Wilson, Dr. Shaquita Starks & Dr. Frieda Hopkins Outlaw
Black people are disproportionately dying from COVID-19 and violent murders without justice served. It impacts black nurses professionally and personally when we must continue “business as usual,” often without support from our places of work and with non-black colleagues who do not acknowledge our lived experience. We ask, “Who’s caring for us?”
#19
By: Steve St. Angelo
JHSON faculty step forward in research, policy, and street-level care to take the fight to the coronavirus.
#18
By: Jarvia Meggett, MPH, MSN, RN
I think back to a lot of my lectures, where being African American or black was described as a risk factor for heart disease. Yet new research from Dr. Diana Baptiste and Dr. Yvonne Commodore-Mensah confirms what we already felt: race alone is not risk factor, environmental, psychological, and social factors are involved.
#17
A Sneak Peek at the School of Nursing’s New Home
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
Good news/bad news: these MSN (Entry Into Nursing) students graduate in May, just before the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing building expansion completes this fall.
#16
By: Steve St. Angelo
Johns Hopkins leaders Deborah Baker and LeighAnn Sidone share perspectives on the fight of their lives for the series ‘Reflections of a CNO.’
#15
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
In the early 90s, Dr. Jessie Casida was one of few nurses working on the first patient with a left ventricular assist device. The patient’s self-management responsibility was so complicated that it inspired him to create VADcare App.
#14
By: Steve St. Angelo
On a hot, late-summer day, Lori Parker, oncology RN, is calm and cool in scrubs, surgical mask, and face shield, dragging two mobile carts at once out to meet a cancer patient’s car in the traffic circle of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
#13
In JHH Biocontainment Unit, Teamwork Is Contagious
By: Steve St. Angelo
Biocontainment Unit’s coordination and preparedness drills help spread leadership across the hospital.
#12
I Don’t Want This to Be Our New Normal
By: Dr. Diana Baptiste
Dr. Diana Baptiste’s father died of COVID-19, but end-of-life care and final rites are an ambiguous concept during the pandemic.
#11
Health Justice Begins with ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
By: Dr. Timian Godfrey
Full acknowledgement of the role societal treatment of Native Americans played in creating existing health disparities is necessary to achieving health justice.
#10
Amazing Alumna & Extraordinary Advocate—Rep. Lauren Underwood, Congrats on Your FAAN Induction!
By: The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and the University of Michigan School of Nursing
Alumna Lauren Underwood, the youngest African-American woman elected to congress, joins the more than 2,600 Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing. Fellows are chosen to recognize their extraordinary contributions to nursing and health care.
#9
Facebook Live Debunks the Myths on COVID-19
By: The REACH Initiative
In the first in a series of Facebook LIVEs, the REACH Initiative set out to debunk the myths on COVID-19 through a Facebook Live, where Dr. Jason Farley, Dr. Michelle Patch and Neysa Ernst, MSN, RN (nurse manager at Johns Hopkins Hospital Biocontainment Unit) answered questions from the public.
#8
I Am: A Hopkins Nurse. I Will: Challenge Cancer Care.
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
So much goes into cancer care—pain management, decision making, death with dignity. This year’s World Cancer Day theme is ‘I am and I will.’ Hear how five Hopkins nurses are changing cancer care—Kayla Madison, MSN, RN, Clifton Thornton, MSN, CRNP, Dr. Chao Hsing Yeh, Dr. Jennifer Wenzel, and Dr. Nadia Lukkahatai.
#7
Acupressure and the Ear: A Healing Path
By: Steve St. Angelo
Researcher Chao Hsing Yeh has helped plant the seed on auricular point acupressure.
#6
When the Past Shapes the Future
By: Lee Kirby, MSN, RN (he/him)
While serving in the Peace Corps in Liberia, I was evacuated due to the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic. Now to up the ante, I’m graduating from the MSN (Entry Into Nursing) Program amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
#5
Amidst COVID-19, Virtual Reality Makes “Social Distancing” Simulation Possible
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
Leadership of the simulation center at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing has been investigating how to bring virtual simulation to life for some time.
#4
How It Started … How It’s Going: From My First Year as a Nurse to 2020
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
How did it start? How is it going? Hopkins Nurses share thoughts, photos and reflections from the beginning until now on the “My First Year as a Nurse” Kudoboard.
#3
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
Life may lead you in an interesting direction before you decide nursing is right for you. Here are stories of 5 MSN (Entry Into Nursing) students who came to nursing after a first (and very different) career.
#2
A First Generation Latina’s Road to Becoming a DNP Pediatric Nurse Practitioner
By: Dr. Ana Saavedra
In May 2020, I earned my Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and became a pediatric nurse practitioner. But that’s the highlight—I am a first-generation Mexican American and first-generation college student from Little Village, a low-income community in Chicago, IL. This accomplishment came with many obstacles, disappointments, and sacrifices… where I learned resilience and relied on my support system. My upbringing became my foundation.
#1
It’s a Remarkable Time to Embark on Your Journey Into Nursing
By: Sydnee Logan, MA
In the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, in the midst of a pandemic, it is truly a remarkable time to embark on your journey into nursing. And over 170 of you decided to take this on.
Honorable mentions:
- What Nurses Need to Know: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, by Katie Nelson, Dr. Teresa Brockie, and Dr. Deana Around Him
- Nurses’ Week 2020
- Coming Out to a Health Care Provider: What it Means for the Patient and the Nurse, by Alex Nava
- Undocumented Latinos Need Access to Care Too, by Dr. Carmen Alvarez and Valentina Bolanos
- What Nurses Need to Know: Recognize When You’re Out of Your Resilient Zone and Take Action
- Can you hear me now? By Kelley Robinson
- Class of 2020, Unleash Your Inner Superhero by Nia Josiah
- Programs to Transition Pediatric Patients with Sickle Cell Disease to Adult Care are Few and Far Between, by Julia Mundt
- Little Taylor and the Prosthesis: 30 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act, by Dr. Janiece Taylor
- 2020: Year of the Virtual Graduation
- Being a Good Neighbor During COVID-19
- #ItCantWait
- We Need Policy Action to Address Financial Strain During the COVID-19 Crisis, by Dr. Laura Samuel and Dr. Sarah Szanton
- Coronavirus: How to Stay Safe at Home if You Have a Chronic Condition, by Dr. Diana Baptiste
- What Nurses Need to Know: COVID-19, Guns and Intimate Partner Violence
- Dr. Craig Pollack is Connecting Scholars Across Johns Hopkins for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Housing and Health