In my role as Head of Nursing, I (Pippa Peppiatt) get the privilege of hearing lots of stories from nurses and midwives on the front line, and the joy of offering support and compassion to them. Many of these stories are tough and challenging. Just this week I heard from a...
At the start of June, Health Education England (HEE) launched a return to practice campaign with Mumsnet. (1) The aim is to recruit at least 1,000 returning nurses into adult, child, mental health and learning disability nursing per year, and at least 100 returning nurses into general practice by March 2020....
In this edition of Spotlight, we look at 'work as worship.' Too often we view the world dualistically - where 'spiritual' activities matter, and secular, everyday activities do not. You may have heard this called the sacred/secular divide. It describes the mindset that we often fall into as Christians; we...
First, let's blow a myth. Christians can and do get depressed and they can and do suffer from mental health conditions. Many great Christians, including Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, John Newton and Mother Theresa battled bouts of depression and/or anxiety. If you are or have struggled with mental illness, you're...
This edition of Spotlight is on mental health. It seems all of us, or people close to us, are affected at some stage of our lives by poor mental health. As nurses, we may be particularly vulnerable to depression or burnout due to both our personality types and the highly...
You cannot have failed to notice the huge rise in popularity of tattoos. Many Christians believe that tattoos are forbidden in Scripture. The NIV rendering appears to leave little room for doubt 'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves.' (1) However, there is...
Caregivers are often so busy caring for others that they tend to neglect their own emotional, physical and spiritual health. Studies confirm that caregivers play host to a high level of compassion fatigue. The word compassion means 'together suffering', or empathy. In my experience, nurses tend to be good at listening...
I read recently that as God's children, we're all on a journey to understanding his loving heart of compassion.This reminds me of another journey that teaches us much about compassion, a journey where two 'good' men (the Levite and the priest) failed to show it, but how one stigmatised foreigner...
W elcome to our sixth edition of Spotlight , which looks at the subject of compassion, what good compassion looks like, and how as care givers and pastoral workers we can try to avoid burnout. Spotlight is a regular publication of CMF, written by and for Christian...
Thank you for your ongoing prayers for the growth of the CMF nursing work. New milestones continue to be reached, including the appointment of our first part time nurse Associate Staff Worker, Esther Chevassut. We also held our first writers' course for nurses last month. Led by Andrew Fergusson, it...