Fall 2020 | Volume 101, Number 4
CAMILLE WENDEKIER, PhD, CNE and KRISTYN KEGERREIS, BSN, RN
The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed many changes in the delivery of health care. These changes range from time-intensive infection control routines to family visitation restrictions for patients admitted to acute health care facilitates. While these changes aim to protect patients and health care workers from contracting COVID-19, these new protocols have unforeseen ramifications on registered nurses.
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SR. ROSEMARY DONLEY, SC, PhD, ARPN, FAAN
During the pandemic of 2020, nurses and other health professionals have been praised for their bravery and commitment to the care of their patients. These frontline workers in their identifiable protective uniforms work long hours in hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, day care centers and community-based clinics. No practicing nurse or physician learned how to care for or treat patients with COVID-19 while in school.
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LAURA McKINNIS, MSN, NP-C
The world seems out of control. We are in a global pandemic, unemployment has not been this high since the 1930s, wars and political rancor make listening to the news a fast track to a panic attack. In the midst of this chaos, I decided to leave my job and open my own health care clinic. Just when I had arrived at a place of confidence and influence in my career, I jumped ship and swam in a new direction.
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BROTHER IGNATIUS PERKINS, OP, RN, PhD
"In our woundedness, we can become a source of life for others." — Henri Nouwen, 1972
"After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, 'I thirst.' There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth." — John 19: 28-29
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JENNIFER PETTIS, MS, RN
America is aging, and older adults comprise a more racially and ethnically diverse group than ever. In fact, there were 52.4 million adults over the age of 65 in 2018, an increase of nearly 14 million individuals in just 10 years. This segment of the population is expected to grow to nearly 95 million by 2060.1 The changing population composition, combined with the movement toward value-based care, has resulted in an urgent need for health care providers to implement systems of care that effectively honor the wishes of older adults and their families.
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JANENE PAPENDICK, RN, MA
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul... my cup overflows." (Psalm 23:1-3,5)
When I applied to the St. John School of Nursing in Huron, South Dakota, in 1973, the school's president, Sr. Mary Aloysilla, asked me why I wanted to be a nurse.
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KATHLEEN SANFORD, DBA, RN, FACHE, FAAN
About 35 year ago, I was asked to explain the role of a hospital nurse executive to a group of staff nurses at an in-service class, so they could better understand what nursing administrators did when not making rounds on the units. I brought my inbox — then a literal collection of papers — to a hospital auditorium to show the intricacies of the job.
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JULIE TROCCHIO, BSN, MS
This is a story of a personal journey. It wasn’t until I started my job at CHA that I found out the organization was and is more than health care. During my first week at CHA I attended the board meeting where the primary issue was "formation," a term I did not know in relation to health care. Formation, I learned, meant continuing the mission, values and spirit of the sisters that founded — another word I did not know in this context — our ministries — yet another expression I had to learn, meaning our buildings and services — to continue the healing ministry of Jesus. The discussion centered on the courageous women who left their European convents to deliver nursing care in this country.
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FEATURES
TIM MORAN
We are more than six months into the COVID-19 crisis, a period of immense disruption in the economy, in consumer patterns, and in how we view work and leadership. Given the confusing, unpredictable nature of the present moment, I have reflected on several distinct but intersecting perspectives on the importance of transformational thinking, leadership and formation in Catholic health care.
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St. Louis Neighborhoods Reveal Pandemic's Toll, Need for Change
SALLY J. ALTMAN, MPH
In 2012, everything was finally coming together for Steven Jones. He was in his twenties, making decent money as a grill master at Red Lobster. He was in love and had three daughters with a fourth on the way. Then he suffered through a five-day seizure.
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D.W. DONOVAN, D.Bioethics, and REX HOFFMAN, MD, MBA
Providence Holy Cross Medical Center is a Level II trauma center located in the northern tip of Los Angeles. The hospital has a reputation for serving the community in the most difficult of situations, playing a major role in responding to disasters, from earthquakes and train crashes to school shootings and rampant fires.
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100th ANNIVERSARY
BRIAN SMITH, MS, MA, MDiv
"Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight, or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies, in a twinkling. It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."
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