Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Respite Care: Donna Bell, a registered nurse and a certified healing touch practitioner, moves her hands over patient Esther Allen during an energy healing session. During the past five years, Bell has been practicing energy healing, an innovative therapy that combines the disciplines of healing touch, medical Qi Gong and other forms of energy work.
The healing touch for caregivers
Nurses' Healing Center recognizes that nurses need good caring, too
By Moryt Milo
According to a Gallup Poll survey, the American public ranks nurses as one of the top 10 most trusted professionals. But these trusted professionals are becoming increasingly stressed and overworked.
In a federal survey conducted last year, California was ranked next to last in its ratio of nurses to patients. This nursing shortage, which California Gov. Gray Davis said is a statewide crisis, has left nurses stretched to the limit and has created a critical need for nurturing the nurturers.
In Willow Glen, one newly formed organization, the Nurses' Healing Center, is addressing the issue.
"We realize there is an important need to help people within the healthcare profession," Executive Director Joyce Lounsberry says. "There is no other program [currently available] where nurses help nurses in a restorative manner."
The organization has developed a unique twofold purpose: structuring itself to address the personal needs of nurses by providing them with holistic healing services, and creating a support system that enables nurses to provide holistic healing services to the community.
By providing colleagues with holistic healing services, which include retreats, educational classes and one-on-one care, the center helps to prevent career burnout, Lounsberry says.
NHC spokeswoman and Cambrian resident Maureen Griswold says, "Nurses are very good about taking care of other people but very naive about taking care of themselves. It is their basic nature to be a caregiver, not a receiver."
NHC wants to address this problem and be a resource for nurses, Griswold says.
One of the ways NHC helps nurses is through classes offered at locations like The Marianist Center, at 22622 Marianist Way, in Cupertino.
In March of 2000, the NHC had a "Day Of Nurturing," specifically geared toward nurses, but also open to the public.
The purpose of the event was to introduce nurses to various holistic therapies--healthcare practices that do not focus on pharmaceutical treatments.
The day was split between lectures and hands-on experience in the specific modalities and treatments. The nurses were given chair massages and introduced to various forms of energy work, including Reiki and therapeutic touch. There was also a lecture on Qi Gong--which has breathing and movement methods similar to Tai Chi--and a presentation on interactive imagination and meditation.
One of the presenters at the event, Willow Glen resident and Nurse Practitioner Mary Craft, says, "The problem with nurses is they forget to care for themselves. Nurses aren't taught anything about alternative medicine in school."
Griswold agrees with Craft and adds, "Most nurses have never even had a massage. The retreat was a way to enlighten them."
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Healing Touch: Esther Allen receives healing hands therapy during a session with healing touch and Qi Gong practitioner Donna Bell, a registered nurse.
For Craft, a nurse practitioner for 20 years, the NHC provides her with an opportunity to expand outside the traditional hospital environment. She recently left the Gardner Family Health Center to go into private practice, counseling women in holistic approaches.
Craft says, "Just because a person is a nurse, it doesn't mean she knows anything about her own health."
Through NHC's support, Craft can offer classes that educate women and empower them to make informed decisions about their bodies.
"I'm basically the type of practitioner who listens to what the patient wants and guides them on their path," Craft says.
At NHC, practitioners have time to listen and direct patients to care that meets their needs, and although NHC does not provide medical diagnosis, it helps refer patients to doctors.
By creating an organization that enables nurses to work with patients outside a traditional medical setting, nurses have an opportunity to provide information and educate community members on women's health issues, AIDS, care counseling, massage, acupressure and other areas of alternative medicine that are not often available in a hospital or clinical environment.
The majority of nurses affiliated with the program are clinical practitioners with advanced degrees in various healthcare specialties.
The organization is still in its infancy, but the program, which began offering services in April of 2000, has three satellite sites, including its Willow Glen location at Christ The Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 1500 Meridian Ave. Each location has a treatment room for counseling, bodywork and massage.
The organization was originally part of the InterGenerational Health Center at the church, a small holistic health center begun in the late 1980s through a grant received from the Kellogg Foundation.
When the InterGenerational Health Center discontinued services, a core group of nurses which included Lounsberry, Griswold, Craft, Beverly Breakey, Donna Bell, Margaret Rich and other skilled nurses, formed NHC.
"About a year ago, when the InterGenerational Health Center elected to discontinue its healing program, a call was put out to nurses who might be interested in transforming and changing the focus," Craft says. "Nurses were invited to participate in what they wanted the new group to look like, and out of that the Nurses' Healing Center was formed."
NHC spent the first five months at the Center for Integrative Medicine at O'Connor Hospital, in San Jose, but the organization soon realized that its focus was not based on a medical model but a nursing model.
What distinguishes the program from others, says Griswold, is that it is an organization directed and managed by nurses, which is different from a conventional hospital setup, where a nurse's job is defined by an administrator or a doctor.
The organization is also designed to offer nurses and the general public complementary alternative healthcare in conjunction with traditional medical care.
With its two-tier purpose, community outreach and nurses nurturing nurses, the organization has the potential to place nurses in a more proactive light within the community, Griswold says.
"There is a nice potential for nurses to start to undertake some leadership," she says.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
