Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice: A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being [Hardcover]

Robert J. Wicks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2005

Physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals working in today's health care settings must be prepared to offer support in dangerous times despite staffing shortages, financial pressures, and complex legal requirements. Overcoming Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice: A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being is a concise guide for all medical professionals who face these demands. This book: � Provides critical information about the dangers of compassion fatigue/burnout and vicarious post-traumatic stress disorder in health care settings � Introduces a newly-developed "Medical-Nursing Professional Secondary Stress Self-Awareness Questionnaire" that can be profitably self-administered at each phase of one's career and reflected upon in private, with one's mentor, or in a small group setting � Includes a unique section on strengthening one's inner life through the use of three core spiritual wisdom approaches drawn from a world religion perspective � Provides a description of four types of "voices" one needs to have in one's circle of friends to ensure that balance, perspective, growth, and challenge are fostered in one's personal and professional life � Describes how physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals can formulate a personally-designed self-care protocol for themselves Lastly, this book offers an extensive and up-to date bibliography of recent research, clinical papers, and books on medical-nursing practice and secondary stress. Overcoming Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice is an indispensable resource for medical and nursing professionals, students, and the counselors and therapists who work with them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Like most of Wicks' works, this book is easily accessible, presented with real-life examples and interviews, and packed with practical self-help advice. For those who wish to pursue any particular themes touched on in this guide, there are plenty of links to follow."--Vision

"...brief, to the point, and practical...a very valuable resource for any health professional working in today's healthcare arena." (5 Stars--Highest Rating)--Doody's

About the Author

Robert J. Wicks is a Professor at Loyola College in Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (August 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 019517223X
• ISBN-13: 978-0195172232
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #671,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Robert Wicks received his doctorate in psychology from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. Presently, he is a professor at Loyola University Maryland. In 1994, he was responsible for the psychological debriefing of relief workers evacuated from Rwanda during their bloody civil war. In 2006, he delivered a presentation on self-care at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and Walter Reed Army Hospital to health care professionals responsible for Iraqi war veterans with multiple amputations and severe head injuries. Dr. Wicks is author of numerous books including The Resilient Clinician (OUP, 2008), Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice (OUP, 2006), and the acclaimed best seller, Riding the Dragon: 10 Lessons for Inner Strength in Challenging Times (Sorin Books, 2003). He lives with his wife Michaele in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stress Relief Suggestions for Health Professionals, January 14, 2006

By 

Fr. Jim - Hospital Chaplain (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice: A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being (Hardcover)

Robert Wicks' suggestions regarding strategies for avoiding or relieving secondary stress are very useful for all medical professionals. As a hospital chaplain I can attest to the fact that such stress is ever present in hospitals. Having suggestions on how to avoid or aleviate it has proven valuable, especially is spiritual areas.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes indeed it's a one-sitting book!, December 9, 2010

By 

Joe Niemczura "nursing faculty" (Honolulu Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice: A Guide to Professional Resilience and Personal Well-Being (Hardcover)

In my experience as a critical car enurse and also as a hospital manager and teacher of nursing, I have dealth with issues of secondary stress for many years and I have seen many victims of this problem. And so, I stay abreast of this issue.

On Page 5 of the book, the author says:

"it's a 'one-sitting book' designed to distill current clinical papers and reaearch; provide proper guidelines to avoid and/or limit unnecessary distress; strengthen the inner life of physicians, nurses and allied health personnel; and offer recommendations for further reading on the topic. If nothing else, its goal is to raise awareness that secondary stress is a danger.."

and I think this nifty little tome fills every one of these these goals and more. In a survey book, Dr. Wicks has managed to distill the best suggestions, on a very practical level, into something that's readable and deceptively simple. I say deceptive, because he has a way of describing the profound thoughts of stress, death, burnout, and spirituality into an engaging style.

It is readable and has many anecdotes to which a clinician will relate. He makes excellent use of summarized bullet points, and checklist style formats to present ideas. I found myself thinking of all the people who need this as a christmas present.

in short: highly recommended!