As more health care systems recognize the importance of tending to the spiritual as well as physical side of health, parish nursing programs has been a growing trend in health care. At New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, parish nurses work through church congregations to fill in the gaps in primary medical care in rural southeastern North Carolina. Parish nurses such as Judy Rush, who serves three churches in a county of less than 50,000 people, organize community screenings, take blood pressure during Sunday School, and pray with patients at their kitchen table. As more doctors acknowledge the spiritual role in healing, she says, parish nursing will become the wave of the future.
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