During this tumultuous period in health care, it can be helpful for both students and practicing nurses to not only look forward to change but to look back at customs that have served nurses well over the years. This text examines a variety of nursing rituals in the context of caring science and evidence-based practice and demonstrates how understanding and incorporation of such rituals can have a transformative effect on contemporary nursing practice. It is written for undergraduate and graduate students, and serves to integrate the liberal arts into nursing education as per AACN's New Essentials of Baccalaureate Education.\\The text explores the history of nursing rituals and the symbols, meanings, and overall usefulness nursing rituals can convey to the profession today. These rituals--marking the sacred and profane of nursing--serve functions both practical and social and offer a window into the art of nursing that runs beneath the surface. Not only does the book examine rituals that take place in nurse-to-patient direct care situations, in nurse-to-nurse relationships, and those that mark the transitions into the professional nursing role, it also incorporates evidence-based research and an emphasis on caring theory. The book demonstrates how understanding and effective incorporation of these rituals in one's learning and practice can enhance nursing care. Rituals addressed include those used for bathing patients, pre and postmortem care, ritualistic prevention of medication-related errors, rituals of socialization, and nursing ceremonies.

most current ed 10/2023.

Rituals in nursing: underpinnings and importance -- Section I. Rituals of nursing practice. 1. Interpersonal caring ritual and interpersonal relationships : Nurse-patient relationship: opportunity for caring and ritual ; Traditions, beliefs, and definitions ; Interaction ritual and interpersonal caring ritual ; Caring theories as framework for caring ritual ; Relationship and ritual ; Initiation to interpersonal relationships ; Artistic interpersonal relationships ; Research on caring relationships ; Interpersonal caring ritual and symbols -- 2. Bathing patients: nursing ritual in transition : Traditions, beliefs, and definitions ; Bodywork and dirty and clean work: pollution and purification ; Initiation to bathing patients ; The art of bathing patients ; Research on bathing and hygienic interventions ; Baths, bathing, and symbols -- 3. Postmortem care: the last nursing care : Predicting and caring for patients in the last hours of life: immediate context ; Traditions, beliefs, and procedures ; Initiation to postmortem care ; Artistic performance ; Postmortem care as bodywork and dirty and clean work: pollution and purification ; Appendix A. Excerpt from Tudor (1890) ; Appendix B. The body flute -- 4. Medication errors and medication administration: ritualistic prevention : Traditions, beliefs, practices, and definitions ; Initiation to medication administration ; Art of medication administration ; Research on preventing medication errors ; Medication errors: ritual objects as symbols and ritual protection from error ; Appendix A. Affirmation. Section II. Rituals of socialization. 5. Change-of-shift report: rite of passage for professional nurses : Traditions, beliefs, and definitions ; Initiation to change-of-shift report ; Artistic performance of a change-of-shift report ; Research on change-of-shift reports ; Change-of-shift reports and symbols -- 6. Nursing ceremonies: transitions into and in celebration of professional nursing work : Nursing ceremonies as initiations ; Nursing ceremonies in celebration of nurses' work ; Other recognition events ; Appendix A. Nightingale Pledge revised ; Appendix B. Nightingale Pledge ; Appendix C. VA Maryland Health Care System observes National Nurses Week with awards ceremony -- Nursing rituals.