JCN Earns the Big One!!
After years of winning the Evangelical Press Association award of merit (second place) in the Christian Ministry category, JCN was pleased to receive first place, the Award of Excellence, this year, for the 2001 issues. Some of the judges' comments: "Excellent writing with important focus on accessibility and comprehension [horizontal ellipsis] a wide array of topics and ideas [horizontal ellipsis] effective use of contemporary and traditional content [horizontal ellipsis] elegant graphics and content-driven visual storytelling." "JCN staff takes its mission and makes an excellent magazine." JCN also won fourth place in poetry in the Higher Goals portion of the contest for Mary-Kate Heffern's poem "The More Than Ten Commandments" in the summer issue.
Resources for Sexual Trauma Victims
In 1994, in response to allegations of sexual misconduct against some members of the monastic community, the Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute (ISTI) was formed. Its vision is to facilitate the building of safe, healthy and trustworthy communities of faith. They seek to prevent sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment through research, education and publications. Board members include survivors and offenders, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, lawyers, theologians, educators, researchers and writers. Men and women are represented, as well as representatives of the Jewish community and eighteen Christian denominations. E-mail them at [email protected] or check their websitehttp://www.csbsju.edu/isti.
CMA Objects to Cloning Ads
David Stevens, MD, executive director of the 16,000-member Christian Medical Association, states that an ad campaign launched by the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research promoting human cloning research is "a big, expensive lie that is tantamount to deceptive advertising. It's motivated by greed, not humanitarian motives. [horizontal ellipsis] By redefining the term human cloning, the biotech lobbyists think they can get around public revulsion to cloning. But whether you call it somatic cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning, or anything else, the fact remains that you are intentionally manufacturing a human being for the sole purpose of research in which he or she will be destroyed. [horizontal ellipsis] While hundreds of studies show adult stem cells are providing real cures for real people, not one study shows clinical benefit with cloned human embryos." Stevens asks the question, "Are we going to allow financially motivated biotech lobbyists to determine the path for our future, or are we going to step in and say, "No, there are some lines that science must not cross"?-Contact Margie Shealy of CMA, (423) 844-1000, [email protected].
Nursing Stats
* 2,558,874 licensed RNs in the U.S.
* 95% of RNs are women
* Almost 30% of RNs are over 50
* Over 75% licensed RNs employed in nursing, 71.4% full-time
* Average annual salary for all RNs-$42,071, for a staff nurse $38,567
-Minority Nursing Statistics, Minorityhttp://Nurse.comwebsite. As quoted inNursing Spectrum, February 11, 2002
Shared Hope International
As a congresswoman in 1998, Linda Smith visited one of the worst brothels in the world in Bombay, India. The hopeless faces of the desperate women and children who had been forced into prostitution compelled her to found Shared Hope International, a non-profit organization with a mission of rescuing and restoring victims of sex trafficking. Shared Hope is committed to prevention, intervention and support of their existing safe houses, but they find that the escalating problem of human trafficking worldwide dictates that they aggressively develop strategies and alliances to more effectively wage war against this dehumanizing action. For more information about how you can help through prayer, finances or active involvement, contact Shared Hope by e-mail at [email protected].
The MS Detective
More than 300,000 Americans have multiple sclerosis (MS), a disabling central nervous system disease. Doctors have long been baffled as to why some MS patients respond well to certain drug treatments, while others decline rapidly. Claudia Lucchinetti, MD, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, may have found the answer. She identified four types of lesions-the places where protective coating has been stripped from nerve fibers-and found that each patient has only one type of lesion, but they vary from patient to patient. She soon hopes to be able to differentiate lesion types using MRI technology and tailor individual therapies.
-Gina Shaw, Ladies Home Journal, May 2002
You Can Aid Victims of Abuse
Whether they know it or not, most health care providers treat victims of domestic violence on a regular basis. The National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence has resources, guidelines and materials to help doctors, nurses and other providers identify and help patients facing abuse. By calling (800) RX-ABUSE, a nurse can request information, talk to an expert on domestic violence and be connected to a national network of experts who can provide training or consultation on domestic abuse. "Too often, health care providers miss the chance to help battered women because they do not know how to ask the right questions," said Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) associate director Debbie Lee. The FVPF works to end domestic violence and help women and children whose lives are devastated by abuse, because every person has a right to live in a home free of violence. Check out FVPF's multi-faceted health program at http://www.fvpf.org/health.
JCN Index Change
JCNwill no longer devote a page in each fall issue to an annual subject index of articles. In the future, we refer readers who want to locate a particular article to the cumulative index, updated with each issue, that appears on the Nurses Christian Fellowship andJournal of Christian Nursingwebsite, http://www.ncf-jcn.org. If you need help locating something, you can always contactJCNmanaging editor Cathy Walker at [email protected].
Increase Your Knowledge of Religious Practices
Nurses are increasingly caring for patients with religious beliefs other than Christian. A helpful source: A Handbook for Chaplains: Religious Requirements and Practices was created by the Institute for the Study of American Religion for the Office of the Chief of Chaplains for the Department of the Army. It includes summary information about religious groups: 12 Christian heritage; 5 Indian heritage; 5 Islamic; 4 Japanese; 6 Jewish; 5 Sikh/Sant Mat; 14 distinctive groups. The information about each group was supplied by the group itself. You can see the online edition of the handbook at: http://www-cgsc.army.mil.
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