Elijah Mwendwa

 Johanne Sekkenes and the Beatitudes Name: Course: Professor: Institution: Johanne Sekkenes and the Beatitudes Johanne Sekkenes is a registered nurse from Norway working with the doctors without borders also known as Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF). She is the current head of missions for the organization. She started out as a registered nurse working in her home country Norway in a hospital for five years before pursuing post-graduate studies where she studied tropical medicine, nutrition and response to natural disasters and public health issues. The Rwanda genocide moved her to seek work with a humanitarian organization (MSF USA, 2014). Her first posting was in Kuito in a war-ravaged Angola to revamp a hospital that had borne the blunt of the war during the siege of the city. Her first assignments at the new posting included war-surgery such as landmine injuries and gunshots. She also cared for nutrition of young children. The human suffering she witnessed at her first posting stroked in her some desire to do more. She has since worked as a nurse, field coordinator, and head of mission, program officer and coordinated operational support for MSF. These assignments have helped her develop a global view of the humanitarian issues and lobby for support of humanitarian efforts among the international community. Sekkenes has identified that conflict adversely affects the delivery of health care and contributes to humanitarian issues. The MSF since inception has been involved in operations all over the world providing impartial health care to affected communities and individual from either side of warring factions. Their core principle is to be impartial and neutral which has served to enable them continue offering health care even at the worst of war and destruction (MSF USA, 2013). The activities of the MSF are guided by medical ethics with principles of patient autonomy, dignity and confidentiality being upheld. The MSF while being impartial also acts as a witness when extreme acts of violence have been meted out to individuals and communities or groups. The organization thus seeks merely not offer health care but seeks also to restore peace and the dignity of the people it serves. The inception of Advanced Practitioner Registered Nurse APRN had humble beginning with community-based nurses offering their services autonomously within the community. Lay healers, more often women, saw the healer’s role as intertwined with one’s obligations to the community. The beginning of nursing as a professional endeavor was marked by the development of the Nightingale schools in 1873. Nursing was first involved in cleaning up hospitals, development of the settlement movement and autonomous practice in public health and home care. The early nurses were mainly vocational individuals as opposed to career people. The focus of the first nurse practitioners was directing a role of public health nurses who provided child care for uninsured children (Sheer, 2008). The mission and work of the MSF and the nurses in the early history of the Advanced Practitioner Registered Nurse APRN reflect what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. Indeed, he said; 14You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[b] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16 NIV They uphold these teaching by doing charity and humanitarian work among communities that need the health care services the most. Indeed, the MSF became a light that shone on the world when their self-less service was recognized by being awarded a Nobel peace prize in the year 1999. As an organization, MSF does not shy of from strife-prone areas where the security of its personnel and facilities is often at risk. Kidnappings, attacks and other forms of persecution are not unheard of but the organization rarely relents from offering its services unless there are genuine threats to the life of its personnel. They uphold the eighth beatitude i.e. blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10 NIV Through also their call to witness against extreme actions of violence the MSF act as peacemakers and are merciful to those who have been oppressed by the ravages of war and other man-made or natural disasters. The service of the MSF and that of early nurses in the history of APRN was one of charity and humanitarian aid. While service at the MSF is fully voluntary and full of risks as Sekkenes explains, it is an obligation for all medical practitioners as laid out in the medical ethics manual for all medical practitioners to engage in charity and advocacy activities for equitable health care to needy individuals and communities. The service of the MSF volunteers and that of early APRNs inspire me to go further than required by my ethical obligations as a registered nurse to reach out and offer uncompensated and much needed care to communities that lack the facilities or skilled manpower they require for quality health care. References Bible, H. (1984). New international version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Sheer, B., & Wong, F. K. Y. (2008). The development of advanced nursing practice globally. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 40(3), 204-211. MSF USA,. (2013). Charter. Retrieved 1 October 2015, from http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/about-us/history-principles/charter MSF USA. (2014). Johanne Sekkenes, Nurse. Retrieved 1 October 2015, from http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/work-us/work-field/staff-profile/johanne-sekkenes-nurse