Description

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Suffering is an unavoidable reality in healthcare. Not only are patients and families suffering, but more and more the clinicians who care for them are also experiencing distress. The omnipresent, daily presence of moral adversity is, in part, a reflection of the burgeoning complexity of healthcare, the clinician's role within it, and the expanding range of available interventions that must be balanced with competing demands. There is an urgent need to design solutions that address the myriad factors that create the conditions for imperiled integrity within the healthcare system.

Moral resilience is a pathway to transform the effects of moral suffering in healthcare. Cynda Hylton Rushton and colleagues offer a novel approach to addressing moral suffering that engages transformative strategies for individuals and systems alike and leverages practical skills and tools for a sustainable workforce. By taking this approach, healthcare professionals will be able to dismantle the systemic patterns that impede ethical practice, do so with integrity, competence, and wholeheartedness. This is a must-read for clinicians and front line-nurses, physicians, system leaders, and policymakers, as it will require collective collaboration, aligned values, shared language, and intentional design to make our healthcare organizations and their clinicians healthy again.

About the Author

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Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, is the Anne and George L. Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics in the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the School of Nursing, with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics. A founding member of the Berman Institute of Bioethics, Dr. Rushton co-chairs the Johns Hopkins Hospital's Ethics Committee and Consultation Service. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, a Hasting's Center Fellow and author of over 250 journal articles and scholarly book chapters. She is co-creator of the Rushton Moral Resilience Scale-16 (RMRS-16).