Can Med-Surg be holistic?

[narnar]

Greetings! I am a student nurse from the Orvis School of Nursing at the University of Nevada, Reno. I will be writing a summary paper of responses to this posting for my theory 2 class.

It seems that med-surg is a great place to learn and solidify skills. I am attracted to it as a starting point for my nursing career. However, I wonder if med-surg nurses are able to be holistic in their approaches to patients. It seems that med-surg can be very busy with a high patient-nurse ratio. It seems that the nurses are so busy taking care of basic medical needs that there may not be time to look at the patient as a whole, to talk with him/her, listen, and provide other modalities of care that are not medical. I am a massage therapist changing careers. I believe in holistic healing, western medicine, and eastern medicine. Is there a way to encorporate it all? As med-surg nurses in the field, are you able to encorporate holism and how?

I have researched the topic of holistic nursing a little and have found that it is popular in oncology nursing. Is that because oncology nurses have less patients per nurse? I have also found that some hospitals are creating departments of inpatient holistic services, but I haven't seen this in the places where I've done clinical. That seems to only exist in a few places. Is holistic nursing possible in main-stream, busy hospitals, particularly in med-surg? Please share your thoughts....

Thanks!

References:

Newshan, G. (2004). Development and evaluation of an inpatient holistic nursing care services department. Complimentary Therapies in Nursing and Midwifery. Vol 10, Issue 3.

Smith, A. (2005). My Life as a Holistic Nurse. Journal of Holistic Nursing. Vol 23, No 4.

[SFCardiacRN]

Not only can but should be. Holistic nursing is treating the whole patient not just the disease. A good med/surg nurse is part psych nurse also.