Stories of Children's Pain

Bernie Carter is Professor of Children's Nursing at the University of Central Lancashire and Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom. She is a Clinical Professor at the University of Tasmania and Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Child Health Care. She was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in recognition of her contributions to the field of children's pain. Bernie's research and writing focuses on children's pain experiences and the assessment of children's pain. She is particularly interested in improving the lives of children with complex health care needs and life limiting/threatening illness. Bernie's research work draws particularly on narrative and appreciative inquiry and on arts-based methods as a means of engaging with children and eliciting stories of their experiences, hopes, beliefs and concerns. Bernie believes that stories are at the heart of the connections we make with children, families and their experiences of pain.

Managing Neonatal Pain Advice on Discharge Managing Procedural Pain Pain in Sickle Cell Disease Parents Managing their Children's Pain Existential Pain and the Importance of Place and Presence Managing Pain in PICU Assessing and Managing Pain in a Child Who is Cognitively Impaired Fear, Pain and Illness Acute Pain Developing into Chronic Pain Language, Metaphor, Imagery and the Expression of Pain Minor Injury, Acute Pain, Wounds and What Really Hurts Nonpharmacological Methods of Pain Relief Neuropathic Pain Organisational Imperatives and Individual Responsibility to Avoid Poor Pain Management

'This excellent, evidence-based book will help practitioners personalise children's pain in age-appropriate and family-centred ways. Every nurse that has contact with neonates and children should read it and take note.' -- Professor Jane Noyes, Chair in Health Services Research and Child Health, Bangor University and Visiting Professor of Child Health, University College Dublin Carter and Simons frame their thorough discussions of the evidence-based literature on pain within extended first-person stories of the children themselves, their families, and the nurses struggling to provide good care. Real people with fears, frustrations, and losses are never subsumed into that abstract entity called "patients". Carter and Simons make a clear case for how much pain matters in treating illness, and why personal caring makes all the difference in treating pain. -- Arthur W. Frank, Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary, author of The Wounded Storyteller and Letting Stories Breathe