Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being

by Wicks, Robert J.

• ISBN13: 9780195172232
• ISBN10: 019517223X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals working in today's health care settings must be prepared to offer support in dangerous times despite staffing shortages, financial pressures, and complex legal requirements. Overcoming Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice: A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being is a concise guide for all medical professionals who face these demands. This book: · Provides critical information about the dangers of compassion fatigue/burnout and vicarious post-traumatic stress disorder in health care settings · Introduces a newly-developed "Medical-Nursing Professional Secondary Stress Self-Awareness Questionnaire" that can be profitably self-administered at each phase of one's career and reflected upon in private, with one's mentor, or in a small group setting · Includes a unique section on strengthening one's inner life through the use of three core spiritual wisdom approaches drawn from a world religion perspective · Provides a description of four types of "voices" one needs to have in one's circle of friends to ensure that balance, perspective, growth, and challenge are fostered in one's personal and professional life · Describes how physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals can formulate a personally-designed self-care protocol for themselves Lastly, this book offers an extensive and up-to date bibliography of recent research, clinical papers, and books on medical-nursing practice and secondary stress. Overcoming Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice is an indispensable resource for medical and nursing professionals, students, and the counselors and therapists who work with them.

Author Biography

Robert J. Wicks is a Professor at Loyola College in Maryland.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Anthony Barbaro, M.D.
Introduction. Reaching Out...Without Being Pulled Down: Remaining Passionate in the Fields of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health—A Guide to Personal and Professional Well-Being	3	(11)
Chapter 1. Tacking On Dangerous Psychological Waters: Appreciating the Factors Involved in Chronic and Acute Secondary Stress	14	(33)
Chapter 2. "Riding the Dragon": Enhancing Self-Knowledge and Self-Talk in the Health Care Professional	47	(37)
Chapter 3. Drawing from the Well of Wisdom: Three Core Spiritual Approaches to Maintaining Perspective and Strengthening the Inner Life of the Physician, Nurse, and Allied Health Professional	84	(29)
Chapter 4. The Simple Care of a Hopeful Heart: Developing a Personally Designed Self-Care Protocol	113	(27)
Epilogue. Passionate Journeys: Returning to the Wonders of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health	140	(7)
Bibliography	147	(42)
Index	189