¶ … photo novellas to test the creative aptitude of nurses working in oncology and palliative care. Researchers asked how they defined spirituality and were told to select between four to six photographs out of a photo novella they captured from their work in the field to represent these feelings. The participants in the study included five female oncology and palliative nurses, all working within Atlantic Canada. Researchers claim that "these specialty areas of nursing were selected because of the life-threatening nature of patients' illnesses, end of life issues, and the associated need for spiritual care" (Burke & Evans, 2011). Essentially, nurses within palliative and oncology contexts do often help patients with spiritual care as patients prepare to deal with a variety of end of life issues. Ultimately, the primary purpose was then to test the spiritual aptitude of these nurses in a qualitative context, while also including an exploration of how they engaged in critical and creative thinking, which helps structure other roles for nurses in a variety of health care roles. Ethical procedures were guaranteed by asking for permission to use the nurses' photographs. Moreover, the study was first reviewed by the Ethics Committee board to ensure that there were no personal violations, since the study was conducted in such a personal context. Unfortunately, the research questions and hypotheses of the study are not as clearly defined as the study purpose. In fact, it is difficult to find research questions or hypotheses within the context of the study at all. After reading the entire study, I had to make assumptions about what the research questions and hypotheses were. Essentially, the study wants to test the ability for nurses in such specialty areas on how they deal with answering and interpreting...
I would assume then that the research questions are how well such nurses can respond to such abstract and intense questions, as patients often ask them similar questions while actually working in the field. Yet, there is no mention on how these specialty nurses may differ from nurses in other health care roles. A potential hypothesis could be that nurses in palliative care and oncology tend to have a deeper acceptance of spirituality and can interpret abstract notions more broadly than nurses in other areas of care. Yet, there were no other specialties included in the context of the study, so that could not be a hypothesis. Instead, I feel that the researchers just wanted to test the narrative method using the photo novella to see if it was an accurate method for qualitative research on such abstract concepts. This makes the study more inclined to exploring research methods within the field of nursing, rather than actual nursing practices. Still, this is not directly made clear by the researchers and thus the study could have been more streamlined to present clear research questions and hypotheses that would be helpful in later evaluating the results of the study.
Will's desire to withdrawal all life support and refuse his treatment is supported by legal precedent, even though it is likely that his refusal of treatment will result in his death. Conversely, Will does not have the legal right to demand treatment or intervention which would hasten his death. Therefore, were Will placed on life support, and it was known that his desire was not to have such support given to him, then this could
Palliative care is a specialty that is relatively new but that has evolved steadily over the past few decades. Its goal is providing advanced cancer patients with end of life care. Its rise was because of the public's growing dissatisfaction and concern with how dying patients were being taken care of in the 1960s and the 1970s (Cole, Carlin & Carlson, 2015). At the time, oncologists were mostly concerned with
Palliative care has gone under a lot of changes as the years have progressed. Just like how general care has been advanced for the sick in areas such as pharmacology and medical engineering, palliative care has also been given much importance. Palliative care has been recognized as a specialty in many countries. There has been evidence that a care outlook that takes note of psychosocial, psychological and spiritual support
Hisory of Palliatve Care Palliative Care Palliative Care Methods Palliative care entails assisting patients get through pain caused by different diseases. The patient may be ailing from any diseases, be it curable or untreatable. Even patient who are sick and almost passing away will need this care. Palliative care has characteristics that differentiate it to hospice care. The key role for palliative care is to help in improving the existence of someone and
Medical procedures, like chemotherapy and radiation, are frequently used to alleviate pain and symptoms and for cure. Intravenous medications tackle pain but are also costlier than other forms. The appearance of new and costlier drugs blurs the fine line between life-saving and mere comfort-giving. Chemotherapy can shrink a tumor to allow swallowing and radiation can ease or reduce pain. If the hospice is not well financed, one or two
Nursing theory drew much attention in the last century, and it continues to drive professional expansion and growth in nursing today. This text covers some of the theorists in the field of nursing, and their works. The nurses of the past provided great healing service to patients; however, much of the knowledge they passed down was mainly functional and skills based (Alligood, n.d.). While several of the practices were quite
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