February 2024
The Queen’s Medical Center continues to grow in both its understanding and enthusiasm for Caring Science. The nurses in Hawaii have a deep connection to sacred service and their calling in this work. Caring Science has offered a reconnection to the heart of this service and practices that have invited them to new ways of being and becoming that include care of self and each other. Their dedication to living out their individual Kuleana, the Hawaiian word that explains both your responsibility and privilege to serve, is lovingly supported by the theory, ethics, and practices of Unitary Caring Science.
As an affiliate hospital, the Caring Science team has been hard at work to spread the word about all their new initiatives and programs within the four categories of Education, Praxis, Legacy, and Research. In Education, we are proud to say this year we will have 21 Caritas Coaches® and 35 Caritas Leaders®. This partnership between our coaches and their leadership continues to keep our momentum growing. We have also embedded Caring Science into the new grad residency program. For Praxis, we have helped each of the inpatient units create a serenity space where staff can pause during their shifts. Each Caritas Coach has contributed to their unit's well-being with their projects ranging from building gardens of hope to helping staff remember to stay hydrated. We have a Caritas cart that goes out to meet the basic needs of care providers, and we will soon have wellness champions in each unit. For our Legacy projects, we created a brand-new web page with amazing resources for self-care and connection. Caring Science is embedded within our Nursing Strategic Plan, and we walked alongside our nurses to develop an updated Professional Practice Model that honors both the science and art of nursing as we look for patient outcomes that include healing, dignity, hope, love, and acceptance. Our research team is also hard at work with three IRB-supported studies to understand the current state of nursing and also study how the micro-practice of pausing and gratitude when offered during a shift, can help nurses decrease their experience with burnout.
Lots of amazing work is happening, and we are just getting started!
