Approaches to change

Nursing in the media: A story

/ Carey S. Clark, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, RYT, FAAN / Leave a comment

Unfortunately, nursing seems to lack a strong presence in the media world, including radio broadcasts. I was thrilled then to discover today on my i-pod and podcast supported walk through the woods the presence of a voice of nursing on an NPR show called Snap Judgement. On this particular show, entitled G.I., show # 216, which aired on May 24, 2012, the vignette entitled “Frances Liberty” includes the account of a world war II nurse and how she cared for the injured and dying as a WAC nurse. Though “Lib” died in 2004, her voice lives on in this story of what I would call nurse heroism through creating caring-healing- spiritual environments.

You can listen to the whole show, which is somewhat heart-breaking in its accounts of veteran PTSD issues, or simply entertain Lib’s story by visiting this link:

http://snapjudgment.org/radio-show?page=1

What this nurse remembers the most in her accounting of being a WWII/ WAC nurse are the caring- healing moments she created for the soldiers. She tells of how she had the pretty nurses with their pleasing appearance doll themselves and use perfume, so as to sit with the most seriously injured and dying. Normally I would be perhaps not really thrilled with this portrayal of a nurse as an object of beauty, but I found myself agreeing that the nurses’ pleasing appearance perhaps create an environment of healing for a young man who is facing his mortality far too soon. Theorists such as Jean Watson and Barbie Dossey have agreed that the environment supports the healing process and this is an example of setting an intention for creating a calming, healing, and perhaps even pleasant presence.

Interestingly, the nurse detailed a story of sharing prayers and a rosary with a young Jewish man who was in need of surgery and facing his mortality. Not to give away the story, but her presence and spiritual support were what made all of the difference for this man; a moment of connection lasted this man’s entire life. And, as we often find in nursing, both for ourselves and our patients, it is those caring moments that our patients whom we serve remember, and it is those moments that most impact us as nurses and spiritual beings on our own healing journey.

I would love to read and hear more of our meaningful stories on the nurse manifest blog and in the media; this sort of story can help us to express to the public that we are there for them both as the providers of technically competent, life-saving care, but also as the guardians and supporters of the spiritual- healing needs.

International Association for Human Caring Conference 2012: Part II

/ Carey S. Clark, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, RYT, FAAN / 4 Comments

On the second day of the conference, the key note speaker was Dr. Sigridur Halldorsdottir. My knowledge of Dr. Halldorsdottir’s work was that it is based in caring, but I found myself truly appreciative of the amazing work she has done to define what caring is. Her Speech was entitled,  Caring or Uncaring: What nursing is and what it is not- Revisited. Those of you familiar with Florence Nightingale’s work will recognize the idea of “what nursing is and is not”.

Sigridur provided us with a model that stated that love is the essence of caring. Caring is supported by the nurse’s courage, wisdom, authenticity, generosity of heart, and self knowledge. Patients can sense when caring is genuine and hospitals need to value caring to support nurses in their work.

Dr. Halldorsdottir also listed 9 competencies for caring. The competencies include caring in the sense of the existential, real caring, the ability to educate, ethical approaches, cultural competence, interpersonal communication, education, empowerment, and self development.The idea of being able to align caring with specific competencies demonstrates the advances we are making in developing a caring science of nursing. The downside which cannot be ignored is that if a caring nurse is placed in an uncaring environment, she will most likely leave that environment. This could be part of the body of evidence as to why so many nurses leave the profession.

It is difficult to capture here the essence of Dr. Halldorsdottir’s caring presence as she presented these ideas; she threaded some healing pictures from her homeland of Iceland throughout the presentation, but I was honored to be able to experience her heartfelt wisdom.

International Human Caring Conference: Part I

/ Carey S. Clark, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, RYT, FAAN / Leave a comment

I think that those of us interested in creating change need to find ways to gather, to heal ourselves, and to support one another in and through the change process. It is a blessing when we as professional nurses can be with other professionals of like mind and like goals.  I was privileged to attend the International Human Caring Conference in Philadelphia, PA this week. There were dozens of trade show displays and booths, of variou new and old non-profits aiming to better the world. As always, the key note speakers were amazing and inspiring: Dr. Jean Watson and Sigridur Halldorsdottir.

Dr. Watson focused on the heart space and unitary patterns, how we are all interconnected and how our own thoughts, intentions, and heart spaces can impact the greater field. Though these are not new concepts for Dr. Watson to express (many of them are mentioned in her 1999 publication Post Modern Nursing and Beyond), there seems to be a growing body of evidence to confirm that the transpersonal human caring states and states of personal peace that come from a heart centered space are able to create a greater unitary space and pattern of healing. Human caring therefore becomes about a unitary place of peaceful connectedness. This concept is confirmed by the fields of quantum theory, the unitary world view, caring science, and the ethics of belonging. Our true power as nurses and healers comes from taking action from a place of an evolving higher vibration consciousness and human caring – peace intentionality. Watson emphasized in her presentation the idea that love and peace are the highest level of unitary consciousness, and it is by dropping into heart space, and enacting our heart ways of being, that we can manifest peace and healing in meaningful ways.

Universal, Unitary Heart

Many people may read this and wonder just how to interact within the heart space; they may assume that it takes great practice and effort to relate to others from a heart space. Watson (1999) did however remind us that we have this power within us already; it is not so much about learning or adding in something, it’s about getting in touch with and remembering who we are- spiritual beings, interconnected from our roots. I like to remember that we all came from our star dust origins.

Some simple techniques to enter into the heart space may include closing your eyes, setting an intentionality for caring, communicating, and healing from the heart. Next, one may start from closing the eyes, focusing on the breath moving in and out of the nostrils. Next take the minds’ intention, by focusing on the “third eye” space or the space between the brows, and from there internally-visually dropping one’s attention into the heart space. Notice how it feels to dwell from this space and intend to be in this space throughout the day. Send the love you feel for and from yourself out to your loved ones, family, friends, pets, colleagues, administrators, your challengers, and the world. This can be done in 1-2 minutes, and one can remember/ return to this practice throughout the day; always returning to the heart space which is the core of our being.

For nurses this should be good news. In a just a few steps, you can begin to create the sort of caring-healing practices that make our work worthwhile and meaningful. Additionally, consider that the more one practices self-care and healing techniques, the easier and more natural it becomes to enter into the heart space. Practices such as yoga, Reiki, meditation, contemplative prayer, and tai chi can help one become familiar with the heart space, and prepared to enter it more easily. Taking good care of one’s being through diet, exercise, and sleep are basic health factors that also enable us to better relate to others from the heart. Within the heart space, nurses can generate peace and wellness for self, others, and all beings of the world. From this place of peace, we can create change within our profession, as we strive to support nursing in our emancipatory process.

Dream of a Healing House & Feminist thought in nursing

/ Peggy L Chinn / 4 Comments

Toady I posted on my own blog a “reprint” of the “Dream of a Healing House” that appeared in 1989 in the now-defunct journal Nursing and Health Care.  For those who have become familiar with the NurseManifest project, you will immediately recognize that the dream, and the feminist ideas that I wrote about then are also part of the foundation of the NurseManifest project.  It seems like a discouragingly long time since I first wrote this article, and of course it is even much longer since others have conceived of similar ideas.  But, those of us who have been and are inspired by the ideals embedded in NurseManifest possibilities thankfully never give up the dream!

What prompted me to get permission to “reprint” the dream was a request, by email, from a school in Australia that was facing a routine accreditation review of their curriculum, and in the documents that they had on record describing the curriculum there was a reference to a “dream of a healing house” that was not cited, but that folks involved with the program believed to have been published by me at some point along the way!  They were contacting me to see if this was the case, and if so, where was it published.  I still do not know what their curriculum materials contain, but of course I provided the information they needed and urged them to keep working to make this a reality!

This kind of connection continues to pop up regularly with the NurseManifest project – someone somehow hears about or sees the web site, and either emails or comments when we meet about how much the web site means to them.  So far we have done no promotion, and I wonder what might happen if we were to find more ways to let folks know we exist?  But regardless, I am so very glad that the ideas are “out there” as part of a much wider and deeper trust that we can make a difference!

If you have had experiences that affirm the possibility that our ideals can, or actually are coming into action, please share here!  Just share a comment about what you have experienced, and let’s build a “log” of things that affirm our conviction that the ideals can be real!

To Challenge and to Cooperate

/ Peggy L Chinn / 8 Comments

Most readers of this blog are already aware of the IOM/Robert Wood Johnson report on the Future of Nursing that was issued in October of 2010.  You may recall my post about the report last June – in fact, there were 16 replies to that post – a record for this fledgling blog!  The replies were thoughtful and brought to the fore exactly what is most badly   needed in nursing – challenges about not only the report, but the assumptions underlying it.  So I would like for us to focus once again on this initiative, not simply because of the terrific discussion it raised on this blog, but because it is generating a substantial degree of action.  Part of the action component is built into the funding plan that accompanied the original report, which actually strengthen the possibility that something will come of it!  But of course the action components need to be watched closely.  The challenge for me, and I suspect for many others who entered the discussion in June, has to do with a fundamental question: “Who benefits?”

During the August conference of INANE (International Academy of Nursing Journal Editors) in San Francisco, the 130+ nursing journal editors and publishers heard a presentation by Susan Hassmiller, the Senior Advisor for Nursing for the Center to Champion Nursing in America.  In response to her presentation, the group decided to initiate a coordinated effort across as many nursing journals as possible, to further the possibilities for the achievement of the report’s recommendations.  So far, the INANE web site has a listing of editorials and resources that have appeared in various nursing journals over the past year or so; in the spring of 2012, many of the journals will carry focused messages about the report, articles, and other content that provides evidence and resources for their readers in moving forward.  I would encourage folks to browse this list … it is impressive, and many of the editorials are well worth looking up and reading.  Also, if you want to see Susan Hassmiller’s presentation from the INANE conference, you can find it here (scroll down to the Friday 8:00 session).

So my question for readers of the Nurse Manifest blog: can we both challenge and cooperate?  I fully agree with many of the challenges that came forward in our discussion in June, including skepticism about the source of the report, and the fact that the report’s recommendations are in fact what we might call “lame.”  However, the cold hard truth is that the recommendations of the report, which of course should already be reality, are far from real.  If we were to achieve the report recommendations as reality, do we not have a better outlook for achieving not only the fundamental goal of better health care and better nursing care, but also the ideal of seeing nursing at the center of health care policy-making.  If we simply sit on the sidelines and challenge the report, then we isolate ourselves from the places where mainstream change might be possible.  If we simply cooperate with the report without questioning some of the assumptions and directions, then we ourselves may all too easily be drawn into an abyss of the status quo.  So bottom line, to me, there is no simple way forward.  But I favor moving forward, challenging ideas and actions where possible to be heard, and with as much cooperation as possible with those who follow a more mainstream path than many of us follow!