CUTV News Radio Spotlights Author Dr. Bonnie W. Battey Ph.D, RN

Antioch, CA – When Dr. Bonnie Battey was a nursing student, a patient asked her “Will you pray with me?” Dr. Battey was shocked; something like this had never been mentioned in anything she had encountered in her classes.

Indeed to this day, there are still no courses in nursing programs dedicated to spiritual care.

With 50 years of nursing experience, Dr. Battey’s goal is to bring holistic and humanistic approaches into nursing by emphasizing the interpersonal relationship between nurse and patient.

“I define spiritual care as interpersonal communication,” says Dr. Battey. “This means having eye contact and looking at the person directly.

Dr. Battey has developed the theory of Spiritual Care in Nursing Practice. The goal of this course is to provide nursing and allied health practitioners with a toolkit of knowledge relating spirituality to healthcare, so that they may better assist patients and families through the stress that accompanies caregiving with a better overall understanding of the holistic nature of healing.

“The nurses are the closest ones to the patient out of all other personnel and providing care and getting to listen to their concerns,” says Dr. Battey. “When I looked around for narrowing down what the nurse should do, I came up with certain things that they would look for: beliefs, values, meanings, goals, and relationships. These words focus on the humanizing aspect of the patient.”

Dr. Battey is currently writing the textbook for baccalaureate and master's-level graduate students to serve as a theoretical guide for nurse educators as well as nursing leaders.

For more information, visit www.bwbatteyconsult.com