Parish Nursing being offered as elective course in nursing schools

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Specializes in Peds, Med-Surg, Disaster Nsg, Parish Nsg.

More and more nursing schools are offering parish nursing as an elective course. Are you aware of nursing schools in your area that offer this?

Are you a student in a school where this is offered or have you taken this course? Please share your experiences and thoughts if you are currently enrolled or have taken a course in parish nursing. As a parish nurse, I would love to hear about your class.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

I know this was posted a few months ago - I hope you are still interested in a response. My school did not offer a class specifically for parish nursing, but on spirituality in nursing. It was designed for the RN students, but they opened it up to the LPNs. I took the class and loved it. We wrote several papers - one on how to integrate a spiritual assessment tool into your practice, one was a comparative essay between two religions. The class was completely online. We had a discussion board.

Is there a specific question that you have about the class that I can answer for you?

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Specializes in Peds, Med-Surg, Disaster Nsg, Parish Nsg.

Thanks for your response. I am glad you enjoyed the class. Spiritual care is an important part of caring for patients. Many nurses are uncomfortable addressing spiritual needs. I think our members could benefit from reading more about what you wrote in your paper on integrating a spiritual assessment tool into your nursing practice.

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Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

I took a "Spirituality in Nursing" course in my last semester of nursing school. It was an elective that even today continues to pack more of a bang for the tuition buck than all of the other electives I took during my four years of college, as it helped me become very comfortable with the offering of spiritual care to all sorts of patients. I went on to complete a Parish Nurse course some years later that has also served me well; even though I'm a practicing Catholic and naturally find it easiest to work with Christian patients, I've been able to help provide for the spiritual needs of patients from many different religions, including Judaism and Islam, and have certainly learned to respect each patient's faith---or lack thereof---even when I can't identify with it.

After all, it's not about me, it's about the person I'm caring for, and I have to say that taking these courses really cemented that fact in my mind. Clearly, one doesn't have to take such a class in order to be a good nurse, but if one has any interest at all in holistic nursing, a course in the spiritual aspects of care is highly recommended.

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My school had several elective courses listed in the catalog but unfortunately none of them were being offered due to budget cutbacks. As I recall, one of them was end of life care. Off hand don't remember the others, except parish nursing was not included.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

After all, it's not about me, it's about the person I'm caring for, and I have to say that taking these courses really cemented that fact in my mind.

Well said. This is what I got out of my spirituality in nursing class as well. I was disappointed that many of my classmates did not seem to understand that.

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

If you are reading this and would like a copy of my spiritual assessment paper, please send me a private message. I am uncomfortable posting it.

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Fast forward....2015-I took the educators course from Church Health Center with the intent to continue to teach faith nursing. 2016-since my educator's training, I modified the existing course, and have developed and teach Faith Community Nursing online! I am a nursing professor at Miami Dade College in Miami Florida. We continue to offer Faith Community Nursing as an elective in our RN-to-BSN program. Feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive. I am a product of a 1970's diploma program, we were told never to discuss religion or politics. How sad --this is not stated now, but curriculum rarely addresses it! My students tell me that they feel unprepared for any spiritual care. I would love to see faith nursing covered in entry level RN programs. I teach obstetrics-what better place to discuss faith and belief then in the miracle of life??

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Specializes in Peds, Med-Surg, Disaster Nsg, Parish Nsg.
Fast forward....2015-I took the educators course from Church Health Center with the intent to continue to teach faith nursing. 2016-since my educator's training, I modified the existing course, and have developed and teach Faith Community Nursing online! I am a nursing professor at Miami Dade College in Miami Florida. We continue to offer Faith Community Nursing as an elective in our RN-to-BSN program. Feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive. I am a product of a 1970's diploma program, we were told never to discuss religion or politics. How sad --this is not stated now, but curriculum rarely addresses it! My students tell me that they feel unprepared for any spiritual care. I would love to see faith nursing covered in entry level RN programs. I teach obstetrics-what better place to discuss faith and belief then in the miracle of life??

Thanks for posting this.

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