Texting in class! Nursing research is exciting! See below for Day 24 Innovators.

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To: proposals@google.com
From: 12hourRN@gmail.com
Subject: Why Nurses Need A Google Doodle: Day 24, Nursing Research & Getting Caught Texting in Class

Hey, Doodlers,

It’s been a long, long day in academia. Morning work on a long assignment (titillating stuff, multiple regression), followed by non-stop classes. Almost ready to emerge from this windowless room and come up for a breath; it helps a little that New York seems to be retreating back into winter weather today.

Either way, I’m writing to you tonight via my iPhone from the back row of my research class. Shame, shame. I thought, though, my naughtiness and location a perfect excuse to let you know about the crazy innovative field of nursing research and why so many if it’s members deserve some serious Google Doodling from you.

Although she’s not in charge now, Dr. Ada Sue Hinshaw can be largely credited for getting the NIH’s National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) off the ground. Dr. Hinshaw, who now serves as the graduate school dean at the Uniformed Services University founded the first Federally-funded center for nursing research that later became the NINR.

The NINR was created to incorporate research relevant to NIH’s mission from a nursing perspective, and has produce patient-life-changing research since it’s founding.

Ever hear of a pressure ulcer? Pretty icky, yet a pretty common thing in the hospital. Unfortunately, pressure ulcers are pretty complex things. They start as little red marks that don’t turn white when you press on them, and can progress to grotesque caves and tunnels of dead tissue that eat through bones. Naturally, these things don’t come out of nowhere, and certain risk factors and behaviors can put patients at risk.

The NINR funded studies by Dr. Nancy Bergstrom, who collaborated with a certain Dr. Barbara Braden, and in tandem, a pressure ulcer risk score was developed. The Braden Score is now a household nursing name, and a required assessment for every hospitalized patient, every shift

This is the hard science that NINR produces, with the ultimate goal of disseminating nursing-focused research into clinical practice (ahem, buzz word: evidence-based practice), and into the daily lives of patients and families. Each day, researchers at NINR are using nursing expertise and perspective to implement innovative new science that forwards NIH’s primary goal: Promote health.

I guess this ended up being a four-for-one email: Dr. Hinshaw got the ball rolling, NINR makes practice-changing research by nurses possible, like Dr. Bergstrom & Dr. Braden’s work that predicts (and helps to prevent!) pressure ulcers.

I like it. I like it so much that I’m gonna get back to listening, before the NINR finds out, and never funds my future research ideas on account that I’m texting in class.

Amanda Anderson, RN