Social medicine

Cary E Johnson

Every culture and religion needs to address the subject of death and dying for its people. A review of literature on the ars moriendi tradition reveals common themes of hope, compassion, and patience. For the African American community, the Bible continues to be the source for understanding death. Among this community, acceptance of hospice services has been slow. The project was developed to help the African American community embrace hospice care. An end-of-life care workshop that partnered hospice caregivers and African American church leadership was developed. From this experience, a strategic plan was developed for wide-scale implementation of similar partnerships.

Ross Stanley Banister

Addiction to substances and other behaviors is epidemic. The properly trained and prepared church is the perfect culture for recovery from addiction to occur. Assuming that "all truth is God's truth," this dissertation is designed to gather science that is compatible with scripture, and integrate as a theology of addiction and recovery. Neuroscience, as well as psychological and sociological truths, helps demonstrate the importance of the church in addressing this issue. The dissertation is multi-method: interdisciplinary, integrative (science and theology) and ethnographic (addict and recovery cultures). It is quantitative only in reporting research findings of others.

Willie J Bailey

The project sought to educate substance abusers of Camillus House Social and Personal Adjustment Center, located in Miami, Florida, on how the multigenerational disease of addiction is passed on. This project promotes a public health approach to the treatment of substance abuse by treating the family rather than the individual. Five sessions using an impromptu skit and four didactic sessions educated the abusers about the roles family members play in dysfunctional families. Data suggested an increase in knowledge regarding family roles but no change in beliefs about the importance of involving family members in treatment.

Kent A Mishler

This study relates to the national nursing shortage and the number of nurses leaving healthcare due to compassion fatigue. The study includes one hundred staff nurses at a medical center in central California in which the risk of compassion fatigue was measured prior to intervention. The intervention included eight hours of workshop and three follow-up sessions in which steps to reduce compassion fatigue were introduced. There were twenty-two participants in the intervention and every participant indicated in the post workshop measurement a significant reduction in compassion fatigue risk. The project report includes data gathered in the research and material used in the workshop.