Caring Matters Most: The Ethical Significance of Nursing

by Mark Lazenby

Overview

Through an exploration of the ethical nature of nursing, Caring Matters Most asserts that the act of nursing itself embodies goodness. Nurses can develop this moral character in themselves by cultivating five habits: trustworthiness, imagination, beauty, space, and presence. Practicing these habits will sustain nurses as they meet the challenges of the workplace, the threat of automation, and the incivilities that arise within the nursing community. The volume concludes with thought-provoking discussion questions and exercises designed to help nurses apply concepts in the classroom or in practice. Each chapter combines highly readable explanations of moral theory with real-life examples that can guide nurses in day-to-day practice. Caring Matters Most is an ideal resource for academic or practicing nurses interested in healthcare ethics or philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199364541
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/09/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Mark Lazenby, FAAN, is an Associate Professor of Nursing at Yale University. He is an advanced practice registered nurse and holds a PhD in philosophy.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Ethical Significance of Nursing
Chapter 1: Trustworthiness
Chapter 2: Imagination
Chapter 3: Beauty
Chapter 4: Space
Chapter 5: Presence
Part II: The Ethical Significance of Nurses' Lives
Chapter 6: The Challenge of Unreasonable Demands
Chapter 7: The Threat of Becoming Automatons
Chapter 8: Being Good to Ourselves
Chapter 9: Creating a Civil Community
Chapter 10: Being Grateful
Chapter 11: Towards a Better World
Notes
Bibliography
Discussion Questions

Editorial Reviews

"The chapters are thought provoking and the content provides opportunities for refection. [The book's] excellent resources can be used for individual refection and to stimulate group discussion. I would recommend this book to anyone who is already a registered nurse, regardless of their seniority and those who are considering entering the nursing profession." — Andrew Southgate, Nursing Times

"Armed with a Ph.D. in philosophy, Lazenby infuses this expertise into his thought-provoking narrative, remarking on the importance of regard and mindfulness while at a patient's bedside. He presents these crucial guideposts without dry textbook jargon but instead with engaging, relevant anecdotes from patients and nurses, offering his valuable tips with encouraging motivation. In a demanding industry confounded by the complications of encroaching automation and both patient vulnerability and ever-increasing acuity, Lazenby — with boundless enthusiasm and positivity — seeks to inject the caregiving role with some much-needed kindness and sympathy while still attaining the professional medical standards and goals nurses strive for." — Kirkus Reviews, May 2017

"Mark Lazenby is right: Caring matters most. Yet we find ourselves in a rapidly changing health care system that seems more chaotic, stressful and uncaring than ever before—and in a society that continues to devalue caring as the foundation of health and healing. This book holds the promise for ensuring that nurses are outspoken advocates for bringing the elements of caring into our health care organizations, systems, and policies. For both new and seasoned nurses who are concerned about the "business" of health care pushing out nurses' essential role and moral obligation to care for and about individuals, families and communities, Caring Matters Most is essential reading. It is also essential reading for anyone concerned about whether our health care system and those who work in it understand how to make caring our primary mission. If we don't, we are lost." -Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, Senior Policy Service Professor, George Washington University School of Nursing

"This "little book" details the big ideas that form the foundation of the nursing profession. It is a must read for those new to the profession and those long in the profession alike. In simple but powerful prose Mark Lazenby reminds us why we nurse and what it means to be a nurse." -Judith B. Krauss, MSN, RN, FAAN, Dean and Professor Emerita, Yale University, School of Nursing

"A crucial book for all nurses, novice or experienced, it made my heart sing and brought tears to my eyes. Lazenby says to be a nurse is to be 'compelled to care' and he beautifully details the ethics of that compulsion. Read Caring Matters Most to remember why we do this challenging, but ever so important, job of nursing." -Theresa Brown, PhD, BSN, RN, New York Times best-selling author of The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives

"Noble and often moving. An eloquent argument that caring, not reasoned principles, enables each of us to work towards a better world." -Richard A. Burton, MD, Author of On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Wrong

"Many have recommended the ethics of care as an approach to nursing ethics. Lazenby has provided an excellent account of what the ethics of care actually means for practitioners of the profession. His broadly Aristotelian approach begins by describing the ethical habits of a caring nurse. His approach is fresh and interesting; personal as well as erudite. He is a philosopher, but he writes as a nurse for his fellow nurses, providing dozens of concrete examples of caring in action. A perfect book for nursing ethics students or anyone interested in the ethics of care and the healing professions." -Daniel Sulmasy, MD, PhD, MACP, Member, Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Problems

"Good nursing, Mark Lazenby reminds us, needs attentive care by trustworthy nurses, which regulatory requirements and formal accountability can never replace. A humane and timely reminder." -Onora O'Neill, The Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve

From the Publisher

2017-05-16
A scholarly discourse proposes integrating increased humanism into the practice of nursing. Yale nursing professor Lazenby (Safe Passage, 2014, etc.) approaches his field with an eye on the intricate balance clinical caregivers must consistently strike when delivering both ethically sound and compassionate treatment. He believes that "technical skill is necessary but insufficient: to be a good nurse, you must be a good person." His directive is based on a nontraditional technique centered on not just being an excellent professional, but also a considerate one and "on ways of working and living as a nurse, not on decision-making algorithms." Throughout his manual, he asserts that this goal is never out of anyone's reach and is achievable with the incorporation of five key factors in the moral character of the caregiver. He shares clinical patient stories illuminating how the habits of trustworthiness and reliability can be as integral and fundamental as personal imagination and the capacity to be "touched by the circumstances of our patients" in enriching the practical application of nursing. Elsewhere, Lazenby advocates seeing patients' "aliveness": recognizing that they require not only medical treatment, but also personal attention, respect, and dignity. There is also a unique type of beauty, he writes, in providing life-promoting care and advice (as well as holistic serenity at the time of death) to patients in distress and that nurses must make the honorable choice to view them as having "lives outside the context in which we see them." Armed with a Ph.D. in philosophy, Lazenby infuses this expertise into his thought-provoking narrative, remarking on the importance of regard and mindfulness while at a patient's bedside. He presents these crucial guideposts without dry textbook jargon, instead using engaging, relevant anecdotes from patients and nurses, offering his valuable tips with encouraging motivation. In a demanding industry confounded by the complications of encroaching automation and both patient vulnerability and ever increasing acuity, Lazenby—with boundless enthusiasm and positivity—seeks to inject the caregiving role with some much-needed kindness and sympathy while still attaining the professional medical standards and goals nurses strive for. His account affirms that the "good life" of nursing is indeed possible and can be enjoyed while molding "a better world for generations to come." A critical, empathetic, and insightful guidebook geared toward enriching the work experience of both established and newly trained nurses.

Kirkus Reviews