Meet the Catholic doctors educating the next generation of pro-life nurses
Campus Reform spoke to nursing department heads at three prominent Catholic colleges to find out how they educate the next generation of pro-life health care professionals.
More than a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the pro-life mission continues. One of the key items of the pro-life agenda in the post-Roe environment is ensuring pro-life medical care for patients at every stage of life, from conception to natural death. Pro-life doctors and nurses are one of the most important factors in ensuring that Americans at every age receive the health care they need and deserve.
Bringing up the next generation of pro-life medical professionals begins with an education firmly rooted in pro-life principles. Catholic universities are on the leading edge of this project. By rooting their teaching in faith and integrating Catholic Social Teaching into both the curriculum and clinical training, these universities are the linchpin of ensuring a pro-life culture in medicine.
Campus Reform spoke to the directors of three nursing programs at Catholic universities to understand how they are empowering the next generation of pro-life leaders in nursing: Dr. Mary Dockter, Dean of the Saint Gianna School of Health Sciences at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota; Dr. Jackie Harris, co-founder and Director of the Nursing program at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas; and Dr. Catherine Sullivan, Chair of the Nursing Department at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. The three leaders explained how their schools are leading the way in promoting a culture of life in nursing.
Campus Reform: How important is pro-life education at your institution? How does Catholic social teaching factor into your teaching methods?
Dr. Mary Dockter, Dean of Saint Gianna School of Health Sciences, University of Mary: The University of Mary is intentional in its delivery of authentic Catholic education. The St. Gianna School of Health Sciences’ mission states we “prepare health care professionals, anchored in moral courage, who respect and defend the dignity of the human person”. This past October 4, 2022, UMary boldly commended its entire School of Health Sciences to the patronage of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, on what would have been her 100th birthday. She was a skilled Italian physician, a woman of courageous faith, a caregiver admired by her patients, and a mother who ultimately gave her life for her own unborn child – the daughter, Dr. Gianna Emanuela, gave permission and support for UMary to carry on that legacy and was present for the ribbon cutting and dedication. It is tremendously important to us that students in the health professions receive specialized education at Mary – not only to become exceptional and skilled providers in their chosen fields, but also exemplars of moral courage, defenders of the sanctity of life and dignity of the human person.
Dr. Jackie Harris, Nursing program Director, Benedictine College: Benedictine College’s nursing program accepts, practices, and promotes the Catholic Church’s social teachings and ethical guidelines.
The nursing program is housed in Benedictine College’s Mother Teresa Center for Nursing and Health Education. The Missionaries of Charity authorized the naming of our center under the condition that the college commit to a 100% pro-life approach. Missionaries of Charity and then Governor Sam Brownback helped dedicate the program on the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s birth in 2010.
Dr. Catherine Sullivan Nursing Department Chair, Franciscan University of Steubenville: Pro-life education is at the heart of what we teach here at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Catholic social teaching is also embraced throughout our curriculum, and can also be seen in non-academic settings through the very large number of outreaches our institution has through programs such as “Works of Mercy” (local charitable outreaches) and Missions of Peace (domestic and foreign mission trips). In addition to student participation, faculty and staff also participate in these endeavors or in other similar local works, and this is supported by our institution. For example, just within our full time nursing faculty this year; 3 faculty have gone on a mission trip (two with the University, to Ecuador, and one with North American Lourdes Volunteers), 4 faculty volunteer regularly at a downtown health clinic, 1 faculty member serves on the board of a local children’s advocacy organization, and 1 faculty member is a member of a team running a local food bank; and these are just the examples that quickly come to mind.
[Related: EXCLUSIVE: Pro-abortion students strike again after throwing urine on pro-life students]
Campus Reform: How does your institution educate students and young professionals to respect the dignity of the human person at all stages of life, from conception to natural death?
Dr. Mary Dockter: Providing students with this level of education requires a strong foundation of faculty who are clinically competent and deeply committed to the mission of the university. The university dedicates substantial resources to faculty development. We have purposely worked to ensure faculty are knowledgeable, confident, and comfortable in the pillars of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Faculty, who transition to academia from clinical settings, have varying backgrounds in CST. We have incorporated intentionality in our hiring practices, including a written response as to how they will support the mission of the University and tenets in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a new faculty retreat with a focus on the University’s mission and identity, and annual sponsorship events with our founding Benedictine Sisters and nationally acclaimed speakers. One significant opportunity allowed for all faculty in the SGSHS to participate in a Pilgrimage focused on the Dignity of the Human Person in which faculty toured Munich, Dachau, Nuremberg, and ended their time in Lourdes. Faculty returned with a renewed and focused determination to assist students in their intellectual and spiritual formation and have continued to dedicate time and effort in their own professional and personal development. This past year, the SGSHS received a grant that helped support faculty development in the pillars of CST, Benedictine Hallmarks, and bioethical principles including online resources and in-person discussion sessions with specific ideas of how best to incorporate into the various curricula.
Dr. Jackie Harris: Benedictine College works closely with Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who has been a pro-life leader in the U.S. bishops to ensure that our college is fully in support of life in its curriculum and outcomes.
Benedictine College’s president Stephen D. Minnis has said that his hope is for Benedictine College to be known as the pro-life university. Students for Life awarded the college for its pro-life efforts. They cited these facts:
Benedictine College participates in sidewalk advocacy trips multiple times per month, which include prayer and counseling at abortion facilities, with dozens of students participating.
Benedictine College participates in 40 Days For Life and Spring Break deployment with Susan B. Anthony List in Philadelphia.
Benedictine College offers financial aid to pregnant and parenting students. Other resources, such as diapers, formula, and blankets, are stored in the group’s pregnant and parenting resource storage unit and given to mothers in need.
Benedictine College students have done diaper drives outside the local Walmart and provided pregnant and parenting students with brochures that have a detailed list of local pregnancy resources.
Benedictine College students were vital in getting the Value Them Both Amendment on the Kansas Ballot and participated in efforts to pass the measure.
Our nursing students are required to complete Christian Bioethics, a course taught through the theology department designed to teach students how to make ethical decisions.
Dr. Catherine Sullivan: Franciscan University’s core curriculum incorporates these aspects directly, particularly in courses such as Foundations of Ethics and Christian Moral Principles. In the nursing program, we have the opportunity to discuss these issues very specifically in the appropriate courses as we deal with many topics that affect patients from conception to natural death. Providing good nursing care across the lifespan is a key aspect of truly respecting human dignity at all stages of life, and we prioritize inclusion of this content across the nursing curriculum. For example, in our pediatrics course, we cover the topic of genetic disorders in children, as well as a variety of congenital malformations that can occur. Discussion of patients with these disorders obviously includes the necessary medical and nursing care information, but is done with a “patient first” perspective; it is a patient who has a particular condition, not a condition that defines the whole of the patient. Caring for these patients and their families is described as a privilege and doing so well while respecting their dignity is a priority.
Campus Reform: Are there any pro-life programs or initiatives at your institution that you are particularly proud of, whether personally or as an institution? Are there any programs or teaching methods unique to your institution that put Catholic, pro-life medicine into practice?
Dr. Mary Dockter: In collaboration with the dedication, the SGSHS hosted its first Catholic Medical Professionals Conference. Nationally acclaimed speakers, including Jeanne Mancini, President of the US March for Life, presented to over 400 students, faculty, and guests. The second annual conference is slated for Dec 2023 and will also feature a strong line-up of speakers focused on advocacy and moral courage…
All health science programs address Catholic Social Teaching, bioethical principles, and moral advocacy in various ways. A specific example is a required interprofessional course for all graduates of the SGSHS in which students review, discuss, and apply the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERD) for Catholic Health Care Services to real-life scenarios, including beginning and end of life examples. In addition to faculty, a Diocesan Bioethicist and experts in Catholic Bioethics serve as facilitators and moderators. Students are encouraged to advance their learning and application of the ERDs, as well as other bioethical principles, by adding a concentration or continuing to a master’s degree in the University’s bioethics program. Another example is the plethora of local and international service-learning experiences that all students participate in that are focused on the poor and vulnerable. This past year alone, students provided over 2700 treatment sessions for uninsured and/or underinsured community members in our on-campus pro bono clinic and multiple students provided compassionate care and interdisciplinary services to patients/clients in Peru and Guatemala.
The SGSHS, and the entire University, is intentional in its formation of healthcare professionals who defend life at all stages. One key area of that has been the university’s annual leadership with the local and National March for Life. In 2016, led by President Monsignor James Shea, University of Mary bused students to the March for Life in DC — a 60-hour roundtrip trek — knowing there was an impending snowstorm. During their return from the March, hundreds of vehicles and Mary buses became stranded on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for over 24 hours. During that time, while in the grasp of Mother Nature, students bonded by singing and holding prayer sessions for the unborn, and Monsignor Shea celebrated Mass in the snow for students and any stranded bystander who wanted to attend. That dedication to life and dignity garnered national attention, and the following year, in 2017, the University of Mary was selected to lead the March for Life in DC with over 600 students attending.
[RELATED: WATCH: 2023 March for Life]
Dr. Jackie Harris: Students for Life awarded Benedictine College the Standing With You scholarship to help pregnant students. The college has for decades been the school that sends the largest number of students from furthest away to the Washington, D.C., March for Life.
President Minnis likes to say that Benedictine College held the nation’s only public celebration of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The college’s commencement speaker this year was Leonard Leo, to whom the college awarded an honorary doctorate.
President Minnis introduced him by saying: “Although Mr. Leo may not be a household name, some people have called him ‘the Michael Jordan of Supreme Court confirmations’ since he has led six confirmation battles and emerged victorious every time. But more importantly than just the wins, is that the Justices he helped...that were able, last year, to accomplish what the pro-life movement had been working and praying for nearly 50 years: to finally, unequivocally, overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Dr. Catherine Sullivan: At Franciscan University we have a very active pro-life club, Students for Life, which organizes peaceful prayer outside of a nearby abortion clinic each week. Each year, a large contingent of our students attend the March for Life, many of whom utilize buses organized by the University in order to attend.
[RELATED: Christian university stonewalls pro-life student group]
An example of a unique teaching method addressing pro-life values is a simulation experience that is offered during the nursing program. In this simulation, students participate in an experience in which they care for a patient who is dying. This simulation opens up the conversation to the topics of good end-of-life care, Catholic teaching regarding end of life, and the practical aspects of providing dignified care for the body of a patient who is recently deceased.
Campus Reform: How does your institution affirm Catholic morality and the pro-life cause in a secular medical profession that is increasingly adverse to both?
Dr. Mary Dockter: While there is divisiveness surrounding the pro-life movement in an increasingly secular world, the University of Mary not only advocates and courageously fights for the rights of the unborn, but actively supports those who choose life. The St. Teresa of Calcutta Community for Mothers was recently launched and provides childcare, room and board, and other assistance to women facing unexpected pregnancies as they pursue their degrees. Students are able to see that advocacy and protection of unborn lives also means we have a responsibility to support those lives once they’re born and the women who are generous enough to bring those lives into the fullness of light.
Dr. Jackie Harris: Benedictine College signed an affiliation agreement with Catholic Healthcare International to bring the proposed new independent Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering School of Osteopathic Medicine to Benedictine College’s campus.
Dr. Catherine Sullivan: Our nursing program strives to address these issues by allowing them to be discussed and to highlight the importance of applying a Catholic and Christian worldview to these issues. One of the ways in which we highlight the importance of these issues is through the example of the application of the Franciscan charisms in our teaching, including in our discussions and our clinical written work. These charism statements are an elaboration on the 4 key charisms embraced by the Franciscans that founded our institution, and allow our students to reflect specifically on how these apply to their nursing practice. Student written work and oral conversations indicate that this is a valuable component of reflecting on a clinical day and helps them to incorporate their Catholic and Christian values with the medical and nursing knowledge they acquire while at clinical. As a faculty member, likewise I greatly appreciate the opportunity to see students be able to process these sets of information (clinical and moral) together rather than having them be taught as two separate topics.
Franciscan Charisms
The Nursing Department of Franciscan University of Steubenville espouses and promotes the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church, and embraces the spirituality and charisms of St. Francis of Assisi of penance, prayer, poverty, and humility.
We Believe:
Every human person is created in the image and likeness of God.
Every human person is to be protected, respected, and cared for from conception to natural death.
Nursing is a vocation, a spiritual calling to serve Jesus Christ by caring for the ill, the poor, and the vulnerable.
Nursing requires a prayerful spirit and an attitude of humility utterly dependent upon the inspiration, strength, grace, and guidance that come from God alone.
Nursing requires openness to truth and the ability to reach beyond one’s own comfort zone and personal constructs.
Nursing requires lifelong learning, experience, and proficiency in one’s profession.
Nursing requires responsible stewardship of resources so as to best serve patients and their families.
Nursing requires respect for each patient’s culture, beliefs, values, and preferences, without compromising or sacrificing one’s own principles and beliefs.
