Nursing outlook
-
Gadamer's insights into the hermeneutical process contribute a great deal to the understanding that may accompany scientific inquiry, if preexisting prejudices are respected for their contribution to discipline-specific knowledge. Heidegger said that language "speaks for us in what has been spoken." This means that the way nurses use language signifies who they are as a group of health professionals. Language is the vehicle that discloses nurses' values and beliefs. ⋯ It is complex, process oriented, and abstract, just like the human-health phenomena it represents. It is precisely the unique understanding and knowledge of nursing theories that may direct further discipline-specific inquiry and structure activities for an autonomous nursing practice. Ultimately, knowledge generated from discipline-specific inquiry will expand theories for guiding creative and meaningful practice with persons, families, and groups that seek professional engagements.
-
Health care will be increasingly focused on the principles of health promotion and primary health care to better meet society's health needs. Nursing has an opportunity to lead the way in primary health care, however, for nurses to realize their potential, educational programs must be radically revised and be developed to teach nurses to work from a health-promotion perspective. Only when nurses have fully incorporated the principles of health promotion into their repertoire of working with clients and colleagues will they be the desired and appropriate profession to lead health care into the future.
-
There is strong support in the literature for involvement of nurses with patients and physicians in bioethical decision making about patient care. There are indications that nurses and physicians have different beliefs about decisions made and about the decision-making processes, such as who should be involved and what factors should influence such decisions. The literature also demonstrates that nurses often disagree with physicians or are not involved in ethical decision making or both. ⋯ Ethical principles also support collaborative decision making, involving nurses, as well as physicians, patients, and family. With collaboration there is sharing of information and perspectives, respect for patient and family autonomy, and disclosure. More studies of interdisciplinary bioethical decision making are needed, measuring both professions' perceptions of their roles in ethical decision making, as well as examining the effects of collaboration on care outcomes.
-
The move to standardize nursing education at the baccalaureate level has made AD and diploma educated nurses uneasy about their professional futures. The articulated BS/MS program at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing is designed to alleviate these fears by giving nonbaccalaureate RNs an opportunity to earn BSN and advanced degrees while they continue to work.