Title: Self-care and caring: Bringing it together in nursing
Abstract:
We have witnessed some major changes in Nursing over the past few years. The Pandemic has resulted in changes in how we care for ourselves and others. When we looked at our students and faculty during the pandemic, 58.81% noted that their self-care practices had changed. We’ll be looking at another set of faculty and students to see how they are doing now. In the meantime, our ways of teaching and practicing nursing have changed. During the pandemic, we held online classes, since the facilities had banned all students. With the increase of Online capacity, more people are receiving online services, ie., evaluation and counseling. However, the downside to this is the lack of interbrain synchrony, which I equate with the “Interactive Field in Nursing”. The “Interactive Field” is being able to pick up on the overall sense of well-being or lack of well-being in the other. The Interactive Field in Nursing is based upon what Dumas terms as “Inter-brain Synchrony”. Dumas also noted the clear lack of interbrain synchrony in remote communications. Although highly proficient in online communication, our current incoming nursing students need assistance in developing their social and professional interaction skills. These skills play a major role in developing a strong “Nursing Interactive Field”. We focus on Therapeutic Communication in the Psych/Mental Health Course to assist the students in developing their communication skills and forging their patient-centered skills. Many students have noted that they feel more engaged with the patients after focusing on their communication skills. We will be surveying our graduating seniors in their self-care practices and on how they perceive their patient-centered communication skills.
