“Every JCN has great articles, but several in this issue touched me deeply,” writes Kathy Schoonover Shoffner in her editorial, JCN Articles Hit Home, from the recent Journal of Christian Nursing. In her job as editor, Kathy chooses and edits all the articles in each JCN, yet several family situations gave two articles very personal meaning for her.
One JCN article pointed to the critical need for Advance Directives Education. “ADs made all the difference in my father’s death,” Kathy recalls after she was called upon to make a difficult DNR decision. “Making an AD is a tremendous gift people can give to themselves and to their families,” Kathy said.
Yet, most adults do not have ADs, even though people are living longer. Despite the growing need for advance care planning, many healthcare providers lack the education needed to provide teaching on advance directives. Learn more in the JCN article where you can earn 2.5 CE contact hours.
The second JCN article that hit home with Kathy was Nursing Students’ Perceptions of Adoption (article free for a limited time) about the need for educational preparation to talk compassionately with those impacted by adoption. Nurses in every area of practice will encounter adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents who relinquished a child.
As an adoptive parent, Kathy has had many awkward moments with nurses who asked about her child’s “real” mother, or insisted on an unobtainable family history. “Knowing how to communicate appropriately is one of the most compassionate gifts you can give us.”
As a daughter, a mother, and a nurse, Kathy found something in JCN that resonated with her heart and nursing practice.
As the JCN editor, she hopes you will, too.
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Read more of Kathy’s editorial, JCN Articles Hit Home, in the Journal of Christian Nursing, October–December 2014. Become a member of NCF and receive every issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Christian Nursing as one of your member benefits. Or, subscribe to JCN.
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