Letter From the Editor: Fresh Look for Spring

We celebrated when this magazine marked the completion of its first decade of existence, looking back at the creative and smart ways it had delivered 10 years’ worth of thought-provoking news, features, and notes on nursing to our alumni, faculty, staff, students, and potential students. Then we started thinking about the magazine’s next decade. How could it be even better?

Midwifery being such an important part of the Hopkins Nursing story, we weren’t inclined to throw the baby out with the bath water. And this magazine being the baby of Martha N. Hill, recently named Dean Emerita, we sure as heck weren’t going to dismiss all that it and she stand for. But we did think we could start by freshening up the look. Oh, it’s still Johns Hopkins Nursing–your magazine as much as ours–so you will find all of the familiar and favorite parts where they’ve always been: On the Issue (Dean Patricia M. Davidson’s note), On the Pulse, Bench to Bedside, Live From 525, Hopkins Nurse, Vigilando, plus a robust features section.

What we hope is that, with a clearer, cleaner, bolder look, and perhaps a surprise or two, we can entice ever more eyes to take a moment or 30 to discover what made this magazine so great in the first place: Hopkins Nurses.

Our lead feature article this issue takes a look at a frightening gap in the availability of psychiatric care and how nursing is poised to make a difference (“A Calming Force”). Another tackles challenges raised as baby boomers reach their golden years with a dark secret (“The Alcohol Question”). Then, we check in with Laura Gitlin, PhD, whose Center for Innovative Care in Aging is reimagining geriatric care (“Clear-headed Interventions”).

Take a look around. If you’d like to offer feedback, positive or negative, submit a comment below. And thanks, as always, for reading.

Steve St. Angelo