World of Change: Reflections within an educational and health care perspective in a time with COVID-19

Janne Brammer Damsgaard*, Ann Phoenix

*Corresponding author

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelForskningpeer review

Abstract

Background
Beside handling the physical impacts of COVID-19 there is more than ever a need to understand what can help when mental health is challenged. Within this context our practical wisdom – our ability to understand and recognise when ‘the other’, for example the patient, is feeling lonely or anxious is particularly important.

Aim
This article aim to contribute to the understanding of how the competences of health professionals may be advanced by helping them to develop the self-understanding essential to being wise practitioners.

Method
The article is based on a discussion informed by reflections (written in Danish and translated into English) by Masters students (and registered nurses) participating in a university programme “Patient and user focused nursing”.

Findings
The first part of the article considers a student nurse’s reflection on understanding herself and one of her patients. The second part considers reflections on the contemporary world of change from a student nurse trying to engage with a world she experiences as falling apart. The third part addresses the impact of resonant places and encounters in developing self/other understandings; encounters that may also be produced through songs and lyrics. The final part draws conclusions on how it is possible to reach understandings of oneself and others as student health practitioners in a time of pandemic.

Conclusion
In the process of developing understanding and recognition, competences built on self-understanding are central for helping to form health professionals into ‘wise practitioners’. It is concluded that the existential implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, paradoxically, may direct many people’s awareness to a more sensitive, resonant, attitude towards the other. For some, this may produce a more humanized world and perception of others. Within this perspective the arts may help us to develop self-understanding and recognition of ‘the other’.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer0020764020979025
TidsskriftInternational Journal of Social Psychiatry
Vol/bind68
Udgave nummer1
Sider (fra-til)177-182
Antal sider6
ISSN0020-7640
DOI
StatusUdgivet - feb. 2022
Udgivet eksterntJa

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