This book will be of tremendous use to all healthcare professionals from physicians to nurses to social workers, rehabilitation therapists, and chaplains. The pathway taken here is a sensible and reasonable one, emphasizing a patient-centred approach that underscores the importance of spiritually competent care. The Editors do an excellent job of describing how to integrate spirituality into patient care for all of the different healthcare professionals. They also emphasize the importance of an evidence-based approach that is guided by research. This book provides superb guidelines that will be enormously helpful to every healthcare professional. Harold G Koenig, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina This practical guide tackles the important issues of spirituality in health care, emphasising the role of organisations in developing a culture of leadership and management that facilitates spiritual care. Spirituality is a central part of holistic care that addresses physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of care in an integrated way. The chapters are written by experts in their fields, pitched at the practitioner level rather than addressing 'spirituality' as a purely theoretical concept. Each one describes the realities of spiritually competent practice and show how it can be taught and put into practice in a variety of areas and settings, including Undergraduate and Postgraduate education Acute healthcare settings Mental health Primary care End of Life Care Creative organisations Social services Ideal for practitioners, educators, trainees and managers in nursing and healthcare, the book is also relevant reading for occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers and psychologists.

This book will be of tremendous use to all healthcare professionals from physicians to nurses to social workers, rehabilitation therapists, and chaplains. The pathway taken here is a sensible and reasonable one, emphasizing a patient-centred approach that underscores the importance of spiritually competent care. The Editors do an excellent job of describing how to integrate spirituality into patient care for all of the different healthcare professionals. They also emphasize the importance of an evidence-based approach that is guided by research. This book provides superb guidelines that will be enormously helpful to every healthcare professional. Harold G Koenig, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina This practical guide tackles the important issues of spirituality in health care, emphasising the role of organisations in developing a culture of leadership and management that facilitates spiritual care. Spirituality is a central part of holistic care that addresses physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of care in an integrated way. The chapters are written by experts in their fields, pitched at the practitioner level rather than addressing 'spirituality' as a purely theoretical concept. Each one describes the realities of spiritually competent practice and show how it can be taught and put into practice in a variety of areas and settings, including Undergraduate and Postgraduate education Acute healthcare settings Mental health Primary care End of Life Care Creative organisations Social services Ideal for practitioners, educators, trainees and managers in nursing and healthcare, the book is also relevant reading for occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers and psychologists.

An experience that has proven to be an effective intervention for first year students is the first year seminar. Research supports that students' participation in first year seminars is effective in retention, persistence toward graduation, higher grade point averages, and social integration. Results from the 2001-2002 First Year Initiative Survey provides support that there is a positive relationship between the instructional techniques used in the first year seminar and acquisition of academic and critical thinking skills for students enrolled in the three-contact hour first year seminar. A correlational analysis was performed on the 2001-2002 First Year Initiative Survey results, which identified four institutions of higher education. A multiple case study approach was employed to provide a rich description and analysis of the first year seminar faculty development phenomenon.