Nursing Care through the Eyes of the Patient

Ethnographic methods were used to examine the nurse-patient interaction for the purpose of developing descriptive and explanatory theory of patient satisfaction based on patients\u27 perceptions regarding their nurses\u27 interpersonal skills. A private acute care hospital was the setting for 40 patients and 12 nurses who were study participants. Four processes provided the framework for the themes that emerged: translating, getting to know you, establishing trust, and going the extra mile. I labeled the action of nurses informing, explaining, instructing, and teaching patients the translation process. Informing and explaining were described by both patients and nurses as very important to the patient\u27s well being. In the process of getting to know you, personal sharing and kidding were techniques nurses engaged in almost continuously. Both patients and nurses perceived personal sharing as central in the development of the nurse-patient relationship. Many patients verbalized their appreciation for kidding. Being friendly, and understanding were other nurse characteristics that helped patients feel comfortable in the nurse-patient relationship. Patients described three elements that helped establish trust: First, the nurse in charge was defined by patients as a nurse who knew what she was doing. Second, patients felt confident when the nurse was prompt, followed through, and kept them informed. Third, the nurse who enjoyed her job was perceived by patients as, Her concern is for me. During interviews, patients identified a characteristic they labeled going the extra mile. Three themes emerged: clicking, an immediate rapport between patient and nurse, developing friendship, and doing the extra. Both patients and nurses mentioned the clicking that happens in the nurse-patient relationship, whereas only patients described the nurse who acted as a friend. One patient\u27s description of a nurse who did the extra was, She\u27s being over nice, beyond the point of no return. A conceptualization of patient satisfaction with nursing care, grounded in the data, may be considered as a beginning for others wanting to explore this phenomenon. The conceptualization may be useful in quality of care issues for nursing managers and clinical staff

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Implementation of Research-Based Practices for Teaching Students with Moderate to Severe Intellectual Disability

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformative potential to support the education of students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities (M/SID) and their teachers. Although research and evidence-based practices (EBPs) are integral to fostering positive student learning outcomes, educators face challenges in effectively implementing these strategies. In this article, we discuss how higher education faculty can prepare educators to harness the use of AI as a powerful tool to support the implementation of EBPs in the classroom, addressing teacher fluency and maintenance of application

An Administrative Approach for Special Educator Retention

Special education teacher attrition is an ongoing area of concern across the US. One factor that influences special educator attrition and retention is administrative support. Unfortunately, administrators often enter school leadership positions with little or no background in special education, thus making it difficult to provide the much-needed support. This practitioner piece provides information and resources for school-based administrators to use to support special education teachers and students within their schools

ASASSN-15lu is a Type Ia Supernova

We report spectroscopic classification of ASASSN-15lu (ATel #7698) in SDSS J132112.88+401556.7 (z=0.035037, via NED) through inspection of an optical spectrum (range 370-680 nm, resolution 0.8 nm), obtained with the 2.3-m Bok telescope (+ Boller & Chivens spectrograph) at Kitt Peak on 2015 June 24.2 UT

Nurse-patient interaction and communication: a systematic literature review

Aim: The purpose of this review is to describe the use and definitions of the concepts of nurse-patient interaction and nurse-patient communication in nursing literature. Furthermore, empirical findings of nurse-patient communication research will be presented, and applied theories will be shown. Method: An integrative literature search was executed. The total number of relevant citations found was 97. The search results were reviewed, and key points were extracted in a standardized form. Extracts were then qualitatively summarized according to relevant aspects and categories for the review. Results: The relation of interaction and communication is not clearly defined in nursing literature. Often the terms are used interchangeably or synonymously, and a clear theoretical definition is avoided or rather implicit. Symbolic interactionism and classic sender-receiver models were by far the most referred to models. Compared to the use of theories of adjacent sciences, the use of original nursing theories related to communication is rather infrequent. The articles that try to clarify the relation of both concepts see communication as a special or subtype of interaction. Conclusion: The included citations all conclude that communication skills can be learned to a certain degree. Involvement of patients and their role in communication often is neglected by authors. Considering the mutual nature of communication, patients’ share in conversation should be taken more into consideration than it has been until now. Nursing science has to integrate its own theories of nursing care with theories of communication and interaction from other scientific disciplines like sociology

Minimal surfaces in hyperbolic space and defect CFTs

The Wilson loop is one of the most fundamental and physically interesting operators in a gauge theory. It is gauge invariant and encodes the quark-antiquark potential. The strong-coupling expectation value of Wilson loops in large N gauge theories was also one of the motivating problems for the development of the AdS/CFT correspondence. We derive the form of the Wilson loop in a non-Abelian gauge theory and evaluate select loops in the weak coupling limit. We then perform the same calculations in the strong-coupling limit via AdS/CFT, using the mathematical formalism developed by Maldacena for evaluating the Euclidean Wilson loop on the AdS Poincare boundary. The formalism depends on finding the area of a minimal surface whose boundary is the desired Wilson loop. In the strong-coupling limit, the equations of motion of the minimal surface may be solved using the Pohlmeyer reduction, a process described by Kruczenski and others. These tools allow for the perturbative evaluation of quasi-circular Wilson loops, explicit expressions for which have been worked out to high order by those authors. We confirm the expressions given for the elliptical loop. We then apply the formalism to small deformations to the Wilson loop, which correspond to localized operators in the 1-dimensional “defect CFT” on the loop. We investigate the strong-coupling expectation value of these deformations, and describe how one might search for a novel symmetry within the Pohlmeyer reduction of the defect CFT