|  
Fall 2003
Vol.1 | No. 2
"Can
spirituality be
a resource in breaking this cycle of violence?" |
A Forum for Student Expression
Dual
Diagnosing
Father
Ed gives Holy Communion to a parishioner at St. Wenceslaus Church.
(photo
by Keith Weller) |
As a family nurse practitioner and an inner city parish priest in Brooklyn,
New York, I came to Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in search of an
answer to violence.
In my work in a small clinic sponsored by the Catholic diocese of
Brooklyn, on Sutter Avenue in East New York, I witnessed the effects
of violence
on a daily basis — teenagers and even children caught in gun
crossfire, severe child abuse, and domestic violence on many levels.
Most medical diagnoses were secondary to violence.
Once I finished for the day at the clinic, I would head home to the
rectory and check the roster to see what my priestly duties were for
the week. As a Catholic priest in a Franciscan order, those duties
included overseeing funerals, attending wakes, and making hospital
visits. It was not unusual for me to preside at the funerals of parishioners
half my age, victims of a seemingly endless cycle of violence.
It did not take me long to realize that violence was the common variable
intruding on the spiritual and physical health of my patients. A few
years ago, for example, a 30-year-old single mother of five, whom I
will call Tanya, came to see me. She would bring her children to the
clinic for primary care, and I began to notice a psycho-social change
in her with each visit. Her mood was flat, she was short-tempered with
her children, and an overall sadness pervaded her spirit. Gently, I
asked questions and more questions only to discover that the change
in Tanya was due to domestic violence. The perpetrator was her 16-year-old
son.
It was my experience with Tanya that brought me to the School of Nursing
doctoral program. I wanted to develop the skills to investigate violence
and its relationship to health. Shortly after I arrived at Hopkins,
I heard the dean at the time, Dr. Sue Donaldson, advocating the need
to realize nursing as a practice-oriented profession. She and other
nurse researchers at Hopkins make it clear that nursing research is
not just about answering a question, but it must also consider how
the answer will play out in the lives of people. Another advantage
to being at Johns Hopkins is the available collaboration with peers
and faculty from the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Partnering
with others in research gives yet another insight to the violence phenomena.
As
a doctoral student, I was originally interested in the effects of
chronic domestic violence on children, but now my focus has shifted.
In the litany of questions generated by the research of others, and
the blending of my life as a priest with my nursing, I concentrate
now on dating couples. In the required Roman Catholic preparation
for marriage, there is no screening for violence between partners — something
I find surprising. Through my research so far on interpersonal violence,
I have learned that domestic violence does not begin after the "I
do's" have been said. It almost always manifests itself
during the courtship phase. In addition, I have seen how spirituality
can play a healing role in patient care. So what part does spirituality
play for the person who experiences violence within courtship? I don't
know the answer to that yet, but a pressing question for me remains:
Can spirituality be a resource in breaking this cycle of violence?
The more I seek to find answers to my questions, the more questions
I ask. I look forward to completing my doctoral degree and becoming
an educated nurse sensitized to the variety of research for nursing
practice, not only in the area of domestic violence but in our
profession as a whole.
— Rev. Ed Polichnowski, PhD candidate
^ top
|
|
