The year was 1992. Bill Clinton was elected the 42nd president of the United States. There was a war in the Balkans. “Unforgiven” won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The average cost of gas was around $1.13 gallon.
Nurses were making about $37,738 a year, and there was a shortage of them. The main reasons for that shortage: stagnant wages, low job satisfaction levels, anticipated retirements of baby boomers and a declining interest in nursing. Nursing schools were having trouble attracting students. High-tech jobs were considered the hot new careers.
That same year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched Pulse, a publication for nurses and other health care professionals in Georgia.
“We had heard rumors that one of our competitors was going to start a nursing publication in Georgia called Nursing Matters, and we decided to start our own,” said Christy Davidson, retired recruitment advertising manager for The AJC. “A Florida newspaper, The Sun Sentinel had been very successful with a publication called Vital Signs, and [they] shared some ideas with us.
“In those days, it was a print world, and newspapers served their local markets. There was no global market or online presence, so newspapers in different markets were willing to help each other out.”
Davidson tapped nurse recruiters from Grady Memorial Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Emory University Hospital and others to serve on our first editorial board. Debra Meadows, a legal nurse consultant at King & Spalding, is still on the board.
“With their advice, we purchased a mailing list of Georgia registered nurses and other health care professionals and began work on the first issue,” Davidson said. “We decided to include allied health to differentiate ourselves, and that was a good decision.”
Editors, art directors and nurse recruiters all played a part in launching the inaugural 16-page publication.
“We all worked together and I felt like we were birthing a baby. It’s hard to believe that this is the 20th anniversary,” she said.
A lot has changed in the past 20 years. There’s still a nursing shortage looming, but there’s no dearth of students applying for nursing school. Most schools have highly competitive admissions and turn away many prospective students. The allied health fields are thriving and health care is now considered the hot industry.
The image of nurses has changed, too. They are among the most-trusted and well-respected professionals, according to Gallup polls. Nurses are better educated and better paid than they were in 1992. They are constantly forging new career paths and their role in health care leadership and transformation is vital.
Nurses have gotten better at explaining to the public what they do. We know, because we’ve been reporting those stories for 20 years.
To celebrate our anniversary, we’d like to hear about your last 20 years in nursing. Are you still at the bedside or have you moved into a leadership role or a specialty that didn’t even exist in 1992? Perhaps you were working in an entirely different profession and decided to become a health care professional? We want to hear your stories and plan to feature regular installments in 2012.
Contact us
Do you have any story ideas for Pulse or Pulse Plus? Call 404-526-5664 or send email to jbrieske@ajc.com or lfraines@comcast.net.
