Practices That Facilitate Critically Burned Children’s Holistic Healing

Advances in medical technology have enabled many children to survive injuries that less than 10 years ago would have caused death. The intense physical care and the children's and families' emotional needs place extraordinary demands on pediatric burn nurses. In this article, the author reports the findings of an interpretive study that examined the experiences of 16 pediatric burn intensive care unit nurses for the purpose of uncovering and articulating practices that help critically burned children to heal holistically. Following 112 hours of interviews and 134 hours of observing the nurses while they worked, she identified 12 practices and aggregated them into the theme Healing the Child Within. She observed the nurses laughing, playing, singing, talking, and praying with the children. These everyday practices were for the sake of maintaining or reestablishing harmony of the children's mind, body, and spirit.