By Mandi Enger
A nine-year tradition for the Nevada State College School of Nursing, the Healing Presence Ceremony was held at the Family Justice Park on Monday, September 24, 2012. The ceremony takes place each fall and welcomes current nursing students and faculty, nursing alumni, as well as faculty and staff from across the NSC campus. This year, over 100 individuals participated.
As the School of Nursing’s curriculum is based on caring as a professional nursing concept and way of being, the ceremony is organized as an opportunity for individuals to reaffirm their commitment to this principle.
We hold this ceremony to acknowledge the dedication of each student and faculty member to professional nursing, shared Sherrilyn Coffman, dean of the school of nursing at the opening of the event. This ceremony recognizes the intensive study and personal reflection that are required in the nursing program.
The ceremony begins with participants forming a large circle on the park’s grassy knoll. Then, the group divides into seven lines; each representing one of the seven steps of self-development noted in The Art of Being a Healing Presence by Miller and Cutshall. A nursing student at the head of each line recites an excerpt from the book, detailing one of the steps including:
- Open yourself
2. Intend to be a healing presence
3. Prepare a space for healing presence to take place
4. Honor the one in your care
5. Offer what you have to give
6. Receive the gifts that come
7. Live a life of wholeness and balanceIndividuals in each line are then invited to circle around the center table and take a small branch of lavender as a token of healing and a reminder of their self-dedication to caring both personally and professionally.The School of Nursing would like to thank all participants for their overwhelming support of our students and faculty, added Coffman. Caring is not only a concept for our nurses, but a characteristic of our campus as a whole.