January 2020
This year we will be highlighting a Caritas Colleague and share their contribution and commitment to Caring Science. This month we are celebrating: Holly Wei, PhD, RN, CPN, NEA-BC.
- Post-Doctoral Scholar, Watson Caring Science Institute
- Graduate Leadership Concentration
- Advanced Nursing Practice & Education Department
- East Carolina University, College of Nursing
- Publications
- ECU Profile
“I am blessed to be a post-doctoral scholar of the Watson Caring Science Institute. This experience has opened my world view about the relationship between Caring Science and my teaching, research, and service.” ~ Dr. Holly Wei
Holly is a faculty member teaching in the Graduate Leadership Concentration at the College of Nursing at East Carolina University. She became a Watson Post-Doctoral Scholar in 2017. Since then, she has mentored students and nurses for research and practice, with a Caring Science focus. She has had about 25 publications and 40 presentations with Caring Science as the essence. She also has a poem published: A Moment of Caring. Her publications include the current state of the science of the application of Watson Human Caring Theory, the Ethics of Belonging, and caring as the essence of interprofessional collaboration. She also emphasizes that a caring nurse and physician is someone who is CARE – Competent, Altruistic, Responsible, and Empathetic.
Two articles of Holly and colleagues are within the top 10 downloads of the journal in PubMed Central (PMC). One of the articles was written by Holly Wei and Jean Watson. The article was about healthcare providers’ perceptions of human caring – Healthcare interprofessional team members’ perspectives on human caring: A directed content analysis study. Another article is about healthy nurse work environments – The state of the science of nurse work environments in the United States: A systematic review.
Internationally, she was invited to present in China in November 2019. One of the talks that she gave was Human Caring in Pediatric Nursing Practice and Research at the Nursing Forum of the 5th Peninsula International forum on Women and Children’s Health, Pediatric Nurses Association Annual Conference, Qingdao City, China.
Previously in 2018, Dr. Watson and Dr. Wei were invited to present at the Nursing Forum of the 3rd International Medicine Summit, Qingdao City, China. The message delivered was to make human caring visible in teaching and clinical practice to nurses and patients.
Holly has also guided and helped two hospitals in China develop nursing practice models based on Watson’s Human Caring Theory/Unitary Caring Science. These two hospitals are Qingdao Women and Children’s Hospital and The Qingdao Binhai University Affiliated Hospital.
Qingdao Women and Children’s Hospital is affiliated with Qingdao University. It provides a full range of services, including medical and surgical treatment and care, research, and teaching. At present, the hospital has 42 clinical units and 1,216 inpatient hospital beds, with 2.2 million outpatient visits, 60,000 admitted patients, 30,000 surgical operations, and 16,000 childbirth cases every year.
The nursing practice model of the hospital is the Women’s and Children’s Nursing CARE Model based on Watson’s Human Caring Theory and Wei’s CARE model (2018). The hospital’s nursing practice model includes two centers, patient and nurse, and eight factors. The patient-centered human caring includes four factors: Communication, Assistant, Respect, and Education, and the four factors of the nurse-centered human caring are Competence, Altruism, Responsibility, and Empathy. This model was guided by Holly and expanded by a group of nurse leaders of the Women and Children’s Hospital led by the Chief Nursing Officer, Guiling Yu.
The Qingdao Binhai University Affiliated Hospital is a newly built university affiliated hospital that provides a full range of services. The hospital has 37 clinical units and 1800 inpatient hospital beds.
The nursing practice model of the hospital is the Binhai Hospital Unitary Human CARE Model. This model comprises Excellence, Safety, Humanity, and Integrity, which was developed by Holly Wei et al. (2019) based on the philosophy of Watson’s Unitary Caring Science. Dr. Holly Wei has worked with the Chief Nursing Officer of the Binhai University Affiliated Hospital, Yan Ming, and developed the nursing practice model, the Binhai Hospital Unitary Human CARE Model.
Dr. Wei has also:
- Conducted a literature review with colleagues about the current intervention studies based on Watson’s Theory of Human Caring. The Current Intervention Studies Based on Watson’s Theory of Human Caring: A Systematic Review.
- Worked with a group of nurse educators in China to publish a randomized control trial using Simulation-Based Deliberate Practice to teach Nursing Students’ Communication, Empathy, and Self-Efficacy. The article was published in the Journal of Nursing Education in Dec 2019: Effects of Simulation-Based Deliberate Practice on Nursing Students’ Communication, Empathy, and Self-Efficacy.
- Guided a group of nursing leaders in China and conducted a study on nurses’ perceptions of a caring nurse. The article is in press in the International Journal of Human Caring.
- Mentored nurses in China analyzing patients’ complaints from the ethics of belonging perspective. This article was published in the Advances in Nursing Science (ANS). The article was an Editor’s Pick by Dr. Peggy Chinn and was also made as a CE article. Analyzing Patients’ Complaints: Awakening of the Ethic of Belonging.
- Mentored an undergraduate student on the impact of faculty caring on students’ learning success. The impacts of faculty caring on nursing students’ intent to graduate: A systematic literature review.