We cried together. "Thank you, nurse," she said as she
looked into my eyes and pressed my hand between hers. Then she turned
and walked away. The tears continued down my cheeks as I followed her to
the door and watched her disappear down the hall.
Gayle Maxwell (1990)
This nursing situation is replete with possibilities for nurses, and
others, to understand nursing as nurturing persons living caring and
growing in caring. A dialogue ensues on the nursing situation that
allows participants an opportunity to experience both resonance and
uniqueness as personal and shared understandings emerge. As the reader
enters into the text, the nursing situation is experienced anew,
now within the presence of two nurses, not one. Though intentionally
entering the situation, the second nurse experiences d affirms being
connected in oneness with both nurse and nursed as caring lived in the
moment.
Gayle entered into Tracy's world that night open to hearing a special
call. Gayle's openness was partly a reflection of her use of the
empirical pathway of knowing, the data given in report, the comparison
of empirical observations against biological, psychological,
developmental, and social norms. Before discussing our understanding of
Gayle's response from the theoretical per-perspective represented,
it might be helpful to compare how the call for nursing may have been
interpreted if approached, for example, from a psychological framework.
If the nurse responded from a psychological framework, the problem
identified would perhaps be conceptualized as denial on the part of
Tracy's mother. It could be assumed that Tracy's mother was avoiding the
reality of the impending death of her daughter. Here, the nursing goal
would be assist the mother in dealing with her denial by facilitating
grieving. Denial is only one psychological concept that could be applied
in this situation; avoidance, anxiety, and loss are others. When nursing
care is based on a psychological framework, however, the central theme
of care is likely to be deemphasized in favor of a problem-oriented
approach. The perspective offered by a normative discipline requires
a reliance on empirical knowing. Using only the empirical pathway of
knowing, the richness of nursing is lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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