Useful Admonitions To The Christian Nurse

The author explored the idea of healing of the whole person, and the understanding of health in holistic context evident in nursing practice, and persuasively argued that same idea is not radically distant and distinct from the context and the meaning of healing of the whole person in Christian worldview, despite the differences in the method and in the approach of both nursing and Christian therapeutic interventions. For the Christian nurse therefore, nursing care that includes spiritual assessment and spiritual intervention, is necessary, complementary, and not contradictory, and is indispensable for holistic nursing practice. Holistic nursing assessment and intervention that address the needs of patients are not complete without the inclusion of spiritual assessment and intervention. Although nursing is a respected and a rewarding profession, and nurses play significant role in the recovery and wellbeing of patients, the author discussed the challenges and the issues in nursing professional practice which cannot be denied. These issues in nursing professional practice could directly or indirectly, adversely impact holistic health recovery and wellbeing of patients. Using a jargon-free approach, the author demonstrated acute insight into the issues in nursing practice such as: workplace nursing violence, nursing burnout, medication error, lack of adequate spiritual assessment and intervention that address the needs of patients, the perils and the promises of whistleblowing, to mention but a few, through the lens of Christian worldview, while creating a balance between statements of fact and statements of faith. Through pragmatic, theological, and empirical equipoise, the author positioned the issues in nursing practice within the Christian biblical context, and offered useful admonitions for the nursing practice issues discussed with great mastery and scholarly proficiency. This book could be both informative and transformative to Christian nurses in particular, and to other Christian healthcare professionals in general, who practice in different health care settings that are often very complex and challenging.

A veteran nurse researcher and educator provides a spiritual perspective on the professional nurse's vocation of caring. Grounding each chapter in Scripture, O'Brien explores the Christian nurse's call to love as Jesus loved: without discrimination, reserve and, sometimes, reward.

Nursing is a vocation: a calling from God to care for others. The role of the nurse originally grew out of a holistic Christian understanding of humans as created in the image of God. Yet as nursing and healthcare continue to change, the effects have proven disorienting to many. Now more than ever, we need nurses who are committed both to a solid understanding of their profession and to caring well for patients and their families. For over twenty years, Called to Care has served as a unique and essential resource for nurses. In this third edition Judith Allen Shelly and Arlene B. Miller, now joined by coauthor Kimberly H. Fenstermacher, present a definition for nursing based on a historically and theologically grounded vision of the nurse's call: Nursing is a ministry of compassionate and restorative care for the whole person, in response to God's grace, which aims to promote and foster optimum health (shalom) and bring comfort in suffering and death for anyone in need. Focusing on the features of the nursing metaparadigm—person, health, environment, and nursing—they provide a framework for understanding how the Christian faith relates to the many aspects of a nurse's work, from theory to everyday practice. This new edition of Called to Care is thoroughly revised for today's nurses, including updated examples and new content on topics such as cultural competency, palliative care, and the current state of healthcare and nursing education. Each chapter features learning objectives, discussion questions, case studies, and theological reflections from Scripture to help readers engage and apply the content. For educators, students, and practitioners throughout the field of nursing, this classic text continues to provide clarity and wisdom for living out their calling.

This book is a response to a need. Christian nurses, in a wide range of settings, perform their work based on beliefs drawn from their faith, but until now they've had no specifically Christian theoretical foundation to help them. Nurses working in the emerging field of "Parish Nursing" in particular need a framework that helps them explicitly link the tenets of faith and concepts of health in their practice, education, and research. Nurses of other faiths may also find the framework useful in seeing a way to relate their own beliefs and values to their nursing. In the book's Introduction the author tells why she devoted her doctoral research to theory development and how she went about doing that. The body of the book describes her nursing conceptual framework in depth, yet in an informal "reader friendly" style. The concluding chapter answers the question "Now what?" and helps readers make practical applications in their everyday lives. The four major components of the Faith and Health Framework are presented in detail: Person/Parishioner, Health/Shalom-Wholeness, Nurse/Parish Nurse, and Community/Parish, with the integrating component The Triune God. Described under each component are two organizing concepts, which in turn contain other key concepts, such as: mission, ministry, compassion, competence and communion.Various perspectives on the Framework are depicted in several full-color stained glass figures and in an inspirational poem written by the author. There are extensive bibliographic references and quotations from The Holy Bible, throughout, plus Appendices of relevant materials and resources.

Can nursing be Christian? The answer may seem obvious, yet in our pluralistic society, Christian nurses are often told to keep their values out of their work. In fact, Judith Shelly and Arlene Miller ask, can anyone nurse without being guided by some values? Or do advocates of "value-free" nursing actually struggle in their own, non-religious values? In response to such pressures, many Christian nurses adopt attitudes that don't really fit their faith. For instance, are "rugged individualism" and "the right to privacy" deeply Christian values? Shelly and Miller challenge believing nurses not to forget Christian values, but to better understand and apply those beliefs. Only then can they adopt a true "discipleship strategy" and more ably practice both their faith and their profession. This straightforward, practical book will immensely help and encourage Christians involved in the troubled (and troubling) contemporary profession that is nursing.

Judith Allen Shelly and Arlene B. Miller write from a historically and theologically grounded understanding of nursing as a vocation. They give nurses a framework for understanding and living out that vocation: service to God through caring for others.