NEW YORK NURSE: June 2007
by Joely Johnson
Clothing designer Donna Karan was the host of “Nurses: The Healing Touch,” a workshop held May 17 in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The nursing workshop was part of an ambitious 10-day program called the Urban Zen Initiative.
The project, organized by Karan in honor of her husband who died of cancer, brought together doctors, nurses, yoga instructors, nutritionists, counselors, and other healthcare stakeholders. The goal of the program was to brainstorm ways to integrate alternative modalities such as yoga, massage, Reiki, and other holistic techniques into Western health care.
The daylong nursing workshop included approximately 250 nurses. Panel speakers included Barbara Dossey, director of Holistic Nursing Consultants in Santa Fe, N.M., and author of numerous holistic nursing textbooks. “When nurses utilize holistic methods in their own lives, things begin to change,” she said. The group discussion made it clear that holistic self-care for nurses was in fact a top priority for many of the attendees.
Carla Mariano, NYSNA member and president of the American Holistic Nurses Association, was in the audience. During a comment period, she took the microphone to announce that holistic nursing has recently been approved as a specialty by the American Nurses Association. “Holistic nursing has always held a vision of transforming healthcare into a system that supports wholeness in patients as well as practitioners,” she said.
Look for a feature story by Mariano on holistic nursing in the July/August issue of New York Nurse.