NURSES PLAY WHAT MANY of us believe is the key role in healthcare today. Hands-on, patient bedside caregiver . . . physician’s partner and assistant . . . patient educator and advocate . . . public health advocate . . . it is a huge job. With health care so often now viewed as a for-profit business, the squeeze is on to serve more patients, more efficiently, in less time. New diseases, new medical technology, new political pressures . . . nurses are true heroes for taking all this on. How can the Christian faith bring insight and strength to nursing practice today? Is Jesus’ track record of caring for the sick inspiring and illuminating to nurses? What can churches and fellow Christians do to encourage and strengthen our nurses today? Is it time to revive the practice of churches having a “parish nurse”?


TO HELP US probe this topic, on June 11, 2022 we heard from two talented and experienced nurses. Kathy Leong earned her BS and RN at Cal State University Hayward. She served 27 years at Alta Bates Hospital on the acute surgical floor and since 2014 as School Nurse in the Oakland, San Lorenzo, and Fremont School Districts. Janet Nelson Wray earned her BS in Nursing at the University of Florida, her MS in Nursing at the University of Washington, and her PhD in Psychiatric Nursing at the University of Loyola, Chicago. She now serves as Associate Professor of Nursing at Mt. Joseph University in Cincinnati. She served previously as a nursing faculty member at North Park University (1986-95) and the University of Cincinnati (1998-2018).