Hospital nurse’s article published in national journal

FARMINGTON – Nancy Walters, RN, a nurse on the medical-surgical unit at Franklin Memorial Hospital and a Wilton resident, has had an article she submitted to the American Journal of Nursing accepted and published in the journal’s September 2015 issue. The article called “Coming Home to Nursing” reflects upon nursing in a small rural area providing an unexpected sense of belonging.

The article begins in 2001 when Walters returned to Maine to help care for her mother who had end stage Parkinson’s disease. She had always taken care of people in ill health, but after her mother’s death she began to wonder if her love of caring for others could become her profession and subsequently started classes to become a nurse.

Walters started her career at Franklin Memorial Hospital as a certified nurse’s aide while attending the University of Maine Augusta and has continued her employment at FMH after earning her RN degree. She is now just one course short of earning her bachelor’s degree in nursing from St. Joseph’s College of Maine. She explained that she wrote the published article as a college assignment that required that a manuscript be submitted to an organization for publication.

“Imagine my surprise when I received the letter from the American Journal of Nursing saying that it had been selected to be featured in the journal’s ‘Reflections’ column,” she said.

To read Walter’s article “Coming Home to Nursing” click here.

According to its website, the AJN is the oldest and most honored broad-based nursing journal in the world. Peer reviewed and evidence-based, it is considered the profession’s premier journal.