CONFLICT
THINKING ABOUT WORK THE EVERYDAY FAITH eSERIES
Edited by R. Paul Stevens and Roberts Banks Electronic, Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003, $5.00, downloadable PDF, Palm, LIT, Mobi, HTML.
Brief:: Is there a Christian way to handle conflict at work? What does God think of workplace politics? Stevens and Banks, editors of The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity on which this Everyday Faith eSeries title is based, have collected thirty-three thought-provoking essays to help you to "work" out your faith in practical ways on the job. Whether you read from beginning to end or dip into the articles that interest you most, you'll gain insight on how Christian faith can guide, illuminate, and energize your daily life.
WORKING WITH YOU IS KILLING ME FREEING YOURSELF FROM EMOTIONAL TRAPS AT WORK
By Katherine Crowley and Kathi Elster
256 pp., New York: Warner Business Books, $14.99, 2007, paperback.
Brief: It's easy to get emotionally hooked into tolerating and taking care of coworkers who are unproductive, annoying, needy, or destructive. Break free of such energy drains with the strategies offered by Crowley, a Harvard-trained psychotherapist, and Elster, an entrepreneurial consultant. They suggest stress management but also ask you to carry out remedies such as documenting misbehavior and insisting that policies be enforced to correct problems. Includes printable assessment tools for you and your workplace.
POVERTY
PERSPECTIVES ON POVERTY AND HEALTHCARE A COLLECTION OF READINGS
Edited by Jeanne M. Burger
122 pp., Indianapolis, IN: Precedent Press, 2005, $38.00, paperback.
Brief: A collection of articles designed to increase our awareness of the healthcare needs of underserved populations. Emphasis is placed both on understanding the poor and creating solutions to meet their needs. Case studies and questions accompany each article to facilitate discussion and group activities are provided to increase involvement with the issues that are raised. An excellent resource for healthcare professionals and educators working with students. (See Burger's article on page 26.)
CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY HEALTH FELLOWSHIP (CCHF)
P.O. Box 23429, 3555 W. Ogden Avenue, Chicago, IL 60623 773-277-2243 http://www.cchf.org/
Brief: CCHF is a membership-based networking organization of over 1500 healthcare professionals and students directly involved with and/or concerned about the vision of "Living Out the Gospel Through HealthCare for the Poor." CCHF provides publications, conferences, and opportunities for students to capture the biblical mandate of serving among the poor. Recently, CCHF has been providing technical assistance to health centers interested in starting up, evaluating programs, and replicating Best Practices programs.
SPIRITUAL CARE
SPIRITUALITY IN PATIENT CARE, 2nd Edition WHY, HOW, WHEN, AND WHAT
By Harold G. Koenig
264 pp., Philadelphia, PA: Templeton, 2007, $21.95, paperback.
Review: Koenig, a psychiatrist and former nurse, has updated and expanded his original work on spirituality, adding the latest research on the relationships of religion, spirituality, health, and their application to clinical practice. The book is intended for all healthcare professionals but Koenig definitely writes from the medical perspective. He takes the traditional stance that as the "head of the healthcare team" (p. 7), the physician should take responsibility for initiating dialogue with patients to identify spiritual needs. Then, "if the physician fails to carry out this task, which is now the case for 90 percents of physicians, then it naturally falls to the nurse. If the nurse fails, then the social worker or other allied health professionals[horizontal ellipsis]" (p. 7). Koenig suggests that nurses should take a spiritual history, "particularly if the physician or chaplain has not already done so and documented it" (p. 146) and refer any spiritual needs that require addressing to pastoral care. This seems to be a linear, compartmentalized view of spiritual care, with a limited view of the scope of professional nursing practice. However, Koenig is attempting to get healthcare workers, especially physicians, to assess and respond to patients' spiritual needs. So perhaps his is a "knock on wood" realistic way of examining how to get the job done, imploring all of us, any of us, to incorporate spirituality into our practice.
Despite Koenig's medically dominated view of healthcare, this book is a good resource for spiritual care, offering hands on assessment tools and exhaustive references to research in the area of spirituality.-