“Is there anything you need?” Katie asks.

“Two new arms and two new legs,” comes the quick response from Nancy. She laughs as she tries to keep a good outlook on her ailment. Katie and Kimberly hand her the current edition of their church denomination’s monthly devotional and inquire about her next medical treatment dates. Nancy, in spite of her physical constraints, is a spirited woman and easily captivates her audience with conversation and stories.

It’s obvious that Nancy needs to share her world with them as much as she needs their attentiveness to her medical condition. Before leaving the student nurses ask to pray with her. Nancy eagerly agrees and as the girls leave there is a sense of peace—the absence of ‘dis’ease that is as important to healing as an actual cure.

“Nurses are bridges,” says Geri Smith, associate professor of nursing at Union and a practicing parish nurse. “Nurses connect to people in a way that others in the medical profession and even, clerics, do not.” It is the nurse who explains procedures, offers a compassionate listening ear and assuages fear and anxiety. It is the nurse who understands and is there “just to be with patients.”

By involving the health of the whole person—physically, emotionally, mentally, socially and spiritually, parish nursing serves as an extension of the medical field and works in collaboration with the faith community. It is commonly expected that a pastor visits the sick or shut-in offering spiritual solace and strengthening. However, it is a nurse who can see how to aid that person. It may be in a way as simple as helping to rearrange a kitchen for ease of movement or as crucial as recognizing symptoms that need referral to medical care.

“The parish nurse is not about getting into the doctor’s or clergy’s territory,” says Smith, “but about connecting the patient to whole health.”

Tharon Kirk, Union associate professor and chair of the School of Nursing, is also a certified and actively practicing parish nurse. Tharon recalled a story of a couple in her congregation who needed an interpretive link between the medical profession and their whole health issues.

As the terminally ill husband was sent home to be cared for by his wife, the doctor’s comment to the couple was to get a hospital bed when they were ready for one. At home, the task of caring for her husband became very taxing physically for the wife, whose own health was ailing. However, the couple never considered use of a hospital bed until the parish nurse assessed the situation with them. She convinced the couple that a bed would benefit them greatly, by simply preserving the strength of the wife who was the chief caregiver.

“In their minds,” says Kirk, “the doctor’s statement about getting a bed when they were ready, meant they were to do so only as their very last resort. The nurse was able to translate to them that getting a hospital bed was a means of making their last months together as comfortable as possible.”

Serving People Where They Are
Union alumna Nancy Caldwell (’94) volunteers as a parish nurse in Memphis. Caldwell has always wanted to help the older population in her church and says that parish nursing provides that avenue. Her involvement ranges from aquatic therapy, relaxation techniques and blood pressure checks to home visits, establishing a book club and providing a galleria.

Commenting on the book club, Caldwell states that it has become, as one member puts it, “a saving grace.” The club began as a means to fill social needs and lonely voids for a recent widower, a caregiver, and a sufferer of chronic depression. It was such a successful and enriching venture, that the group has grown and has been meeting weekly since its inception in 1996.

The idea for the galleria originated when a retired church member mentioned that she enjoyed painting. Caldwell suggested a showing of the woman’s work and turned an office into a temporary galleria for display. Opening night fanfare comprised of a reception and flowers for the beaming artist. It was so well received that now the galleria has become a showcase for many others to exhibit photography or various collections. Caldwell maintains that coordinating activities of this nature give encouragement and an invigorating boost to people’s spirit; “almost anything has to do with health.”

“There are so many needs that can be filled by linking individuals to the related resources,” says Caldwell, calling it key to her ministry.

Examples of services Caldwell arranges for her parishioners include bringing in an optician to repair eyeglasses, establishing a lending closet of medical equipment and assistance with understanding medical bills and insurance coverage.

It’s not just the elderly population who need the ministries of a parish nurse.

Caldwell also actively refers young people to Rainbows, an organization that assists children in dealing with a loss—whether through death, divorce, abandonment, or moving from their former home to a new community. Caldwell views her work as one of connecting people to what they need. She feels parish nursing gives her the freedom to serve people during their illnesses or sufferings. She recognizes health is holistic. Caldwell understands the importance of being allowed to voice concerns and having an advocate.

“I knew I’d arrived when people in my faith community trusted me enough to just talk,” Caldwell says with a smile.

Karla Coleman, (’01) a recent Union Germantown graduate, echoes the trust factor. Her experiences reveal that people often feel safer with a nurse.

“They can talk to a nurse—a doctor they listen to,” says Coleman, a reason why she believes people respond to parish nursing in such a positive way. Parish nurses do no “hands on nursing,” and they stress that their nursing is not invasive. Parish nurses are skilled in balancing medical knowledge and science with doctrines of faith and the conditions of human spirituality.

Coleman, who assists AIDS patients and their families, says that in such situations, there is anger, pain, hurt, depression and rejection. Her work of integrating medicine and faith is vital in bringing about healing. She sincerely believes that mind and spirit play an important role in health ministry practices by a faith community.

As part of their ministry, parish nurses often ask to pray with their patients. Rarely are their requests turned down, which affirms what more and more in the medical profession are coming to believe: Science and technology are not the sole answer. People have psychological, spiritual and social dimensions as well, a concept which isn’t new, and whose roots can be traced to the biblical reference of Phoebe, (Rom 16:1 and 2).

Parish Nursing at Union
Union offers parish nursing electives as part of its curriculum on the Germantown campus and this May a certification course open to all nurses was offered on the Jackson campus. Typical workshops encompass an intensive four day training including sessions on ethics, functions, accountability and organization, needs assessments, legal considerations, philosophy and spirituality, community health concepts, grant writing, and being a member of a ministerial team. Upon completion, CEU (Continuing Education Unit) credits are granted and nurses are pinned with a specialized parish nursing insignia.

Currently, Susan Jacob, dean of the School of Nursing, and nursing professors Tharon Kirk, Gail Coleman, Geri Smith, and Charlotte Ward-Larsen, are trained parish nurses. Supported by Union’s faith and life-based philosophy, parish nursing has a strong appeal to a good number of nursing alum who serve in that capacity. Most do so on a voluntary basis, which is typical of many parish nurses—only a small percentage are paid staff of a church or particular faithbased organization. They do it because they love it and find that it fulfills in them what nursing is truly all about—the healing process—assisting the whole person in coming to peace with themselves and their Creator.