"Nursing and Catholic Health Care" is the topic of this issue's special
section. No more timely or pressing a topic can be imagined. Catholic health
care organizations, like others, find it increasingly difficult to come up with
sufficient numbers of trained nurses. And since nursing is so vital a part of
health care, it is no exaggeration to call the nurse shortage a crisis.
Our special section has come together under the guidance of Sr. Rosemary Donley,
SC, RN, PhD, a member of CHA's Board of Trustees, and Julie Trocchio, RN, CHA's
senior director, long-term care. The eight articles range widely, including
Sr. Donley's own analysis of the crisis ("The
Nurse Shortage and Our Ministry,") two prescriptions for solving it (Marjorie
Beyers' and Mary Anne Willson's "The
Nursing Collaborative,") and Elaine I. Bauer's and George F. Longshore's
("Improving Recruitment and
Retention,") and an exciting new look at 19th-century nursing sisters (Sioban
Nelson's "Invisible
Radicals").
Portraits in Collaboration
Also in this issue, we begin a new series called "Portraits
in Collaboration," a group of articles about local partnerships involving
Catholic health care organizations, Catholic Charities agencies, and others.
The focus in this issue is on St. Petersburg/Tampa, FL. Accompanying that article
is one concerning the results of the 2002 joint study, undertaken by CHA and
Catholic Charities USA, of collaborative projects.