by Catherine Halbmaier
Special to The Leaven
OVERLAND PARK — All Catholics are called to see their work as a vocation. Few professions challenge one to unite faith with work like nursing. At John Paul II School here, student nurses from Benedictine College in Atchison demonstrate this every day.
Each year, Benedictine nursing students do a rotation of clinicals, practicing different kinds of nursing. This year, several worked with school nurse Christine Kuhlmann at John Paul II, and their performance astounded her.
“I feel like they truly care about the lives of others, and they each had their own unique stories of how they got to become a student nurse,” Kuhlmann said. “They all had such an unwavering commitment to patient care, and so many great questions. They truly had a beautiful faith in God, and I’m just so impressed with their professionalism and dedication.”
In any setting, the unity of faith and vocation is a beautiful thing for nurses to have. Principal Kathleen Mersman explained the importance of students witnessing this in the school setting.
“I just think it’s such an amazing program,” Mersman said of Benedictine’s nursing school, “because it brings nurses into our school so that maybe they’ll consider school nurse as a route professionally, and also in the Catholic school specifically.”
“There’s so much more to being a school nurse than what people think,” added Mersman. “Before I was principal, I didn’t give it much thought beyond kids coming with a stomachache or a headache. But they do so much more. [School nurses] spot issues, whether somebody is not eating right or not getting enough to eat . . . or just is anxious and in the nurse’s office all the time. They just really are on the front lines of noticing problems.”
One of this semester’s student nurses, said Mersman, was particularly interested in learning to watch for those sometimes hidden problems.
As a current Benedictine senior, Lauren Ring has seen her share of clinicals. Giving her best to John Paul II was just the latest stage in her pursuit of nursing as a vocation.
“The nursing program has done such a good job of connecting my faith to my mission of being a nurse,” said Ring. “I’m not just being a nurse and I’m Catholic; nursing is my vocation. This is what I was meant to do.”
Benedictine’s program has taught Ring to care for her patients holistically — in mind, body and spirit. However, her passion for nursing was present before she started college.
“When I was in high school I went through a really rough time medically for like a year,” Ring said. “I was in the hospital for about a year, and I met a lot of great nurses. They were so amazing and they were just really good examples. It reminded me of when we talk about Christ caring for the sick.”
Through the example of the nurses that cared for her, Ring was inspired to pursue the profession herself.
“I was a senior in high school when I went into remission, and I was kind of lost,” she said. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, and I was thinking back on my time in the hospital. I realized I want to care for people like how I was cared for.”
Through experience and education, Ring’s desire to care for others blossomed into a vocation. She and her classmates are set to be nurses formed not just by excellent academic standards, but in faith.
Now only a semester away from graduation, Ring is still learning what that vocation looks like in different environments. Her time at John Paul II offered a new perspective.
“To work with [Kuhlmann], the nurse that was there, and see how she’s integrated her faith and the faith of the school as a whole with nursing, I feel like I got like a new perspective,” Ring said. “It goes back to the fact that it’s not just about healing an ailment necessarily. It’s all about listening to your patients, talking with them — maybe it’s about praying with them.”
Ring may have learned from Kuhlmann’s integration of faith and profession, but for Kuhlmann, it was inspiring to see young nurses with such zeal and genuine care for their patients.
“They truly had a beautiful faith in God. . . . I am so excited that these girls are going to be our future, the people that are taking care of me when I’m older,” Kuhlmann said.
