Very well put! When someone is in dispair, for example, over losing one's home, enjoying good health may be the last item on the mind. At those times, unhealthy habits may take over and it's not until "normalcy" reappears that exercise, good nutrition, mentally and physically, can once again become a priority.For all of these reasons, nurses will need to understand where a patient is in terms of quality of life and living condition. Acute care nurses often overlook the happenings outside the doors of the hospital.
barb
"The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”
Barb Gingher
--- On Wed, 11/19/08, jwitte <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: jwitte <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: dignity/respecting the priorities of others
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 9:53 AM
I find this discussion most interesting. I sometimes wonder if we in health
care, however, have a skewed perspective of what others' priorities may be.
We are educated to believe that physical health (and mental health) should be a
primary goal for every person. I do not believe this is so for everyone. For
example, family, or intellectual study or spirituality may be most significant
in someone's life. A person may persist in an unhealthy employment,
because it supports the family well, or maintain a sedentary lifestyle because
there is such deep gratification to be gained from study, or appear unmotivated
to pursue life saving therapies-- because they are satisfied with their life and
comfortable with death spiritually.
I agree that we must educate patients well, but we shouldn't feel we or
they have failed if they choose to make choices we consider unwise.
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