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Make the connection

Marr, who has spoken on “The Spiritual Dimensions of the Nurse’s Role,” believes that nurses must care for the whole person—mind, body and spirit—to help patients achieve the best possible condition to restore their health.

For Marr, caring for the whole person involves bringing touch back into nursing. As a nursing student, she was taught to give patients one backrub in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. Nurses aren’t taught that anymore, she said, and they aren’t connecting as well with patients.

Marr helped start reiki classes for staff members at St. Mark’s and practices it with patients. Reiki practitioners believe that reiki, which is Japanese for “universal life force,” involves the transfer of energy to patients to help them heal. Practitioners sometimes use touch to transfer energy. Touch, Marr said, instills muscle relaxation, releases tension and relieves pain.

When Williams worked at Kaiser Hospital in Redwood City, Calif., in 2002, medical/surgical nurses participated in a study that examined the success of “the caring model,” which calls for spending a few minutes with each patient at the beginning of the nurse’s shift. The model said nurses should establish a connection with the patients by calling them by their preferred names, touching them—even if it’s just a handshake—and discussing something that happened to the patient during the previous shift, among other things.

Some nurses wonder how they can spend so much time with patients when their shifts are already so busy. According to the Kaiser study, though, patients’ call lights came on less often after nurses practiced the caring model in their unit. This is because the patients knew that the nurses knew their needs. Spending about five minutes with each patient at the beginning of the nurse’s shift actually saved more time.

Sandy Young, MS, RN, a clinical nurse specialist for Sioux Valley Hospitals & Health System in Sioux Falls, S.D., also has seen spirituality aid patient recovery. But for Young, a member of the hospital system’s palliative care team, recovery isn’t always synonymous with being cured.

She often treats patients who have life-limiting, chronic illnesses who are close to dying. For these patients, recovery means healing emotionally, spiritually and physically so they can die with dignity. Young has seen patients cope better with illness and death when their spiritual needs are met.

Young also helps patients make important decisions about their health care, such as whether they would want to be kept alive on a ventilator if they have a 1 percent chance of regaining consciousness. Helping patients make such decisions involves delving into their psychosocial and spiritual needs.

For Williams, praying with patients when they request it is a rewarding experience. “You really feel like you’re doing more for the patient than giving them medication, that you’re connecting with them on a higher, more powerful level,” she said.

Other nurses, however, aren’t so comfortable praying with patients, especially if their spiritual beliefs differ from those of a patient. Shawn Tunny, RN, a clinical manager in the emergency room at Community Hospital North in Fishers, Ind., who identifies herself as Christian, said she would pray with Christian patients if they asked for it, if they were comfortable with it and if it didn’t interfere with their medical care. However, she said, “You can never assume that the prayer you give is the prayer the patient would want to receive.”