Georgia Southern nursing professor contributes to award-winning textbook

American Journal of Nursing (AJN) recently honored the textbook Global Health Nursing: Narratives from the Field with a Book of the Year award for 2015. Carole Bennett, Ph.D., assistant professor of nursing at Georgia Southern, contributed a chapter to this award-winning book — the first of its kind in which readers hear the voices and stories of nurses working all over the world.
Bennett’s chapter, “Resilience and Recovery: Mental Health Care in Post-Conflict Rwanda” is a harrowing account of her work in a country torn apart by genocide.
“I had been assigned to work at Ndera Hospital, the only psychiatric hospital in Rwanda, high on a hill on the outskirts of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda,” she wrote. “As we came through the gates, I saw a series of brightly painted one story stucco buildings connected by long covered walkways. The buildings were surrounded by well kept African gardens with flowering trees and swarms of brightly colored sunbirds. It looked welcoming, even comforting. But it wasn’t long before cries and shrieks were heard from patients too ill to be calmed even in this serene place.”
The reviewers at AJN said the textbook read more like a travelog which made the reader feel a “part of each contributor’s diverse journey.” Bennett says this is the true strength of this landmark book, in which nurses from all over the world were able to write from their heart and share their intimate experiences from the field. Read full story.
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