Why Spiritual Care?

Staying connected to something greater.

Photo courtesy of Pexels/Pixabay.

In a world that is constantly asking more of us, how can we stay connected to ourselves, to something greater, to a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives? This question guides most of my work, and my personal practices. Across years of conducting mixed-methods research to explore the role of spirituality among people with cancer, I am constantly presented with ways where our connection to spirit is challenged, and ways that we can remain connected amidst the very real pain, challenge, busyness, stress, and burnout of this modern world.

Making time and space for spirituality may seem elusive or impractical, especially when considering the limitations on our time and capacities. Along with co-authors Katie Addicott, MSN, FNP-C, ACHPN, and William E. Rosa, PhD, MBE, AGPCNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, my hope for this recent piece in the American Journal of Nursing is to highlight simple, practical, and enjoyable ways to incorporate spirituality into everyday life and everyday nursing care, with the intention of supporting our own well-being and the well-being of patients and families we work with.

Defining spirituality 

While various definitions have been offered, “spirituality” generally refers to a human experience of connection […]

2023-02-21T10:51:33-05:00February 21st, 2023|end of life, Nursing, Palliative care|0 Comments
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In the Nick of Time: Advance Care Planning in the ICU

Marian Grant, palliative care NP

I’m a health policy consultant for national palliative care organizations and often advocate for advance care planning, a process that helps people with serious illness prepare for future decision-making. I also work as a palliative care nurse practitioner (NP) in an academic medical center where I see the real-life aspects of advance care planning.

I recently saw a patient whose case typifies how advance care planning and policies to support it can work. A middle-aged woman with metastatic breast cancer at our cancer center had been seen the day before by the palliative care NP there. The NP was called to help assess the patient’s new-onset dizziness. While seeing the patient, she also spoke to her about her cancer status and suggested completing an advance directive. According to the NP’s note, the patient’s son, who was there with her, seemed surprised that things were not going as well for his mother as they had hoped.

The ‘Five Wishes’ advance directive.

Later in that same visit, the patient became profoundly hypotensive and was sent to the emergency department and then admitted to the medical ICU. The team there put in a request for a palliative care consult for metastatic cancer. I first saw the patient the next morning. […]

2022-09-22T10:08:13-04:00September 22nd, 2022|end of life, Nursing, Palliative care|1 Comment
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Accepting Patients’ End-of-Life Decisions Can Be Hard

“The most important decision an individual can make may be how much treatment they want at the end of life.”

photo from pxhere

When it comes to end-of-life decisions, it may be hard for a nurse to accept to support only what the patient wants, but it’s also vitally important. In the Viewpoint column in our June issue (Viewpoints are free to read), Nadine Donahue, PhD, RN-BC, CNE, describes caring for an elderly patient in his home as he begins to lose the ability to breathe on his own because of COVID-19.

When she implores the normally spry, physically active retired executive to let her call an ambulance to take him to the ED, he refuses. Writes Donahue, an associate professor of nursing at York College, City University of New York:

“He’d always told me that he believed in a time to be born, a time to live, and a time to die. He was not going to be attached to a ventilator and in a hospital if he could help it.”

[…]

2021-06-09T09:31:31-04:00June 9th, 2021|COVID-19, end of life|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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