Exploring Rituals in Nursing: Joining Art and Science / Edition 1

by Zane Robinson Wolf PhD, RN, FAAN

Overview

Awarded first place in the 2013 AJN Book of the Year Awards in the History and Public Policy category

[This book] leaves experienced nurses with a renewed sense of purpose and urgency Ö For new nurses, the book serves as a reminder that although the work of nursing embodies many forms of technology to assist in the delivery of patient care, it remains vitally important not to forget the importance of the art of nursing, the laying of hands." Score: 86, 3 StarsóDoody's Medical Reviews

A very interesting read, this book reaffirms why and how nurses provide care and incorporate ethical values and respect for human dignity into professional practice. A useful supplemental resource for nursing curricula.—Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries

During this tumultuous period in health care, it can be helpful for both students and practicing nurses to not only look forward to change but to look back at customs that have served nurses well over the years. This text examines a variety of nursing rituals in the context of caring science and evidence-based practice and demonstrates how understanding and incorporation of such rituals can have a transformative effect on contemporary nursing practice. It is written for undergraduate and graduate students, and serves to integrate the liberal arts into nursing education as per AACN's New Essentials of Baccalaureate Education.

The text explores the history of nursing rituals and the symbols, meanings, and overall usefulness nursing rituals can convey to the profession today. These rituals—marking the sacred and profane of nursing—serve functions both practical and social and offer a window into the art of nursing that runs beneath the surface. Not only does the book examine rituals that take place in nurse-to-patient direct care situations, in nurse-to-nurse relationships, and those that mark the transitions into the professional nursing role, it also incorporates evidence-based research and an emphasis on caring theory. The book demonstrates how understanding and effective incorporation of these rituals in one's learning and practice can enhance nursing care. Rituals addressed include those used for bathing patients, pre and postmortem care, ritualistic prevention of medication-related errors, rituals of socialization, and nursing ceremonies.

Key Features:

• Presents a history of nursing rituals and their significance past and present
• Incorporates evidence-based research and an emphasis on caring theory
• Demonstrates how understanding and incorporation of nursing rituals can greatly enhance nursing care today
• Includes rituals for bathing patients, pre and postmortem care, prevention of medication errors, rituals of socialization, and nursing ceremonies
• Features poems and photographs

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826196620
Publisher:	Springer Publishing Company
Publication date:	07/15/2013
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	9.80(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Zane Robinson Wolf, PhD, RN, FAAN, is Dean and Professor, School of Nursing and Health Sciences, La Salle University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Foreword

Prologue: Rituals in Nursing: Underpinnings and Importance

Section I: Rituals of Nursing Practice

Interpersonal Caring Ritual and Interpersonal Relationships
Bathing Patients: Nursing Ritual in Transition
Postmortem Care: The Last Nursing Care
Medication Errors and Medication Administration: Ritualistic Prevention

Section II: Rituals of Socialization

Section II. Rituals of Socialization

Change of Shift Report and Symbols
Nursing Ceremonies: Transitions into and in Celebration of Professional Nursing Work

Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Deborah Kay Peetz, MSN, BSN (Viterbo University)
Description: Using an evidence-based approach, this book investigates the most common rituals of nursing practice and explores their vital importance to nurses and their patients. Although nurses face many challenges in contemporary healthcare, they continue to embrace and incorporate age-old rituals in order to blend the art and the science into caring nursing practice.
Purpose: The purpose is to examine nursing rituals and to investigate the important role these rituals play in contemporary nursing practice. These are worthy objectives because they serve as a reminder to nurses that these rituals may seem mundane or routine. However, these rituals are, in reality, very significant in the caring patient-nurse interrelationships that continue to help promote health and healing, and to alleviate patient suffering.
Audience: According to the author, the audience is baccalaureate nursing students, nursing students at graduate and doctoral levels, and nursing faculty. The information in the book is most appropriate for upper division baccalaureate students and BSN completion students, as well as advanced degree nursing students. These students will have had enough clinical or professional nursing experience to be able to understand the nuances of these rituals and to be able to reflect on their personal nurse-patient experiences while reading this book. The author is a prolific writer on this subject.
Features: The book covers several nursing rituals that embody the art of nursing, including those used for postmortem care, for bathing, to prevent medication errors, and the ritual of shift-to-shift reports that are an avenue for socialization and telling patient stories. In addition, the book explores ceremonies that are celebrated as students transition into professional nursing practice. Usually, most of the patient-nurse ritual encounters are carried out behind closed doors out of respect for the privacy and dignity of patients. The author presents historical background for the rituals of nursing, as well as research evidence, to bring the value of nursing rituals to the forefront of contemporary nursing practice, which may have been overlooked or forgotten. She explores the importance of these rituals for nurses and their patients, even though the rituals themselves, and the importance of them, may be invisible to many nurses and their patients. These rituals will likely be of interest to most nurses as they will be able to reflect on their own practices and be able to apply important meaning to the rituals they continue to participate in. The author provides extensive citation reviews of the research in the form of tables that are easy to follow. This is helpful to me to use for further exploration of other subtopics. Some readers may find the glossary helpful, but it is probably not a necessary component of the book.
Assessment: This is a unique book that explores nursing rituals, which often are carried out as routine care and often under the radar of what most people, including nurses, would recognize as the art of nursing. It leaves experienced nurses with a renewed sense of purpose and urgency to keep these nursing rituals within the realm of professional nursing practice rather than to pass them off as unimportant or trivial aspects of nursing practice that need to be eliminated. For new nurses, the book serves as a reminder that although the work of nursing embodies many forms of technology to assist in the delivery of patient care, it remains vitally important not to forget the importance of the art of nursing, the laying of hands. Both approaches should complement each other and both should be part of the nurse's caring role.

Doody's Review Service