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Waters addresses 'End-of-Life' nursing consortium
April 1, 2005 | |||||
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KOKOMO, Ind.—IU Kokomo Visiting Lecturer in Nursing Candy Waters, R.N., M.S.N., attended an “End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium” in Long Beach, Calif., in March. The 1,000-page syllabus of information given to the consortium's 116 attendees illustrates the large number of issues involved in end-of-life care, Waters noted. Presentations covered pain and symptom assessment and management; cultural considerations; ethical issues; communication; loss, grief, and bereavement; and achieving quality care at the end of life. “Nurses spend more time with patients who are facing the end of life than any other members of the health care team,” Waters said. “Yet studies have shown that many nurses feel inadequately prepared to provide the comprehensive care so important at the end of life.” Waters was invited to make a short presentation to attendees on the benefits of using appropriate humor as a stress management and coping skill for patients and caregivers. “I talked about Allen Klein's book, The Courage to Laugh, and his ideas on allowing patients to laugh as a way of dealing with their illnesses,” she said. Humor among nurses and between nurse and patient was the topic of Waters' master's degree research project. She will begin work this summer on a doctorate in health care law, through online instruction from Concord Law School of Los Angeles. Waters also works as an intensive care nurse at Logansport Memorial Hospital. She plans to present some of what she learned at the consortium for area hospital in-service training and develop a means of adding more end-of-life training for IU Kokomo nursing students. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the City of Hope Cancer Center sponsored the consortium with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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