St. Joseph's Healthcare System

Maria Brennan, CNO of St. Joseph's Healthcare System introduces the Jean Watson Million Nurse Global Caring Field Project.

The project celebrates caring in nursing. Brennan's Watson moment was when she was working as a neurosurgical nurse caring for a young 21-year-old male patient who had neurosurgery and was in a coma. He was in the coma for 3 weeks and I was his primary nurse, it was a Saturday morning and she was beginning to give the patient a bed-bath and he woke up. Brennan began introducing herself but before she could the patient claimed he knew her name and remembered hearing her voice while in his coma. Other nurses share their personal experiences of miraculous relationships with other patients. Lorraine Dougan, MSN, RN, ACNP, Relationship Based Care Manager for St. Joseph's Healthcare System also talks about the importance of Watson's theory in the hospital to her. "I feel for me that nursing is a calling, one of the things i've struggled with in the past is anxiety about all the things that I need to do. What I've learned in the past several years through Jean's work is to take a moment and to step back and to take back my power to know that i have the choice and that i do not have to function in that anxiety. In moments of anxiety and frustration, step out of the room, be by yourself, close your eyes and take a deep breath and while you're taking that breath just imagine what it is that brings joy to your heart. Allow that energy of joy to flow from the top of your head through your body to the bottom of your feet and allow that energy to go deep into the center of the earth. This is what we call grounding, and in grounding yourself from you heart in feelings of joy and love we can shift the way we feel we can be perceived differently and we can have a better experience.