In school I was always told how important nursing theory is in guiding nursing practice and improving care. Both in undergraduate and graduate school my teachers ridiculed PAs for not having a theory that guides their practice. Are there any nurses that actually use a nursing theory in practice? Are there any nurses that can name one nursing theorist and explain the theory? I have also found that the teachers in my theory classes have very elitist attitudes when it comes to the theories. I have encountered one hospital that prides itself on basing its nursing care on one particular theorist. No nurse I have worked with in the last 10 years basis there care on a theorist, they can't name a single one. How can theory be what drives our practice, when it is never used. And my teachers have even admitted that some are too complicated for many entry level nurses to truly understand.
At first I just told myself I am not experience enough or know enough about nursing to understand it. I have been a nurse for almost ten years and now realize that its not just me not grasping its importance, its just not important. My opinion now is that nursing theory was created to justify nursing as an academic discipline in a time when no one believed nursing belonged in a university. Then it was used to justify doctoral level nursing. I think nursing theory could be used to guide nursing, but it just isn't being used in actual practice. I know many nurses are going to read this and consider it heresy, but just ask the nurses you work with about the theorist they know and how they use them, my bet is that very few could even name a theory. Seems to me that only PhD nurses use theory for their research, but it fails completely when it comes to actually guiding practice. Just wondering what everyone else's opinion was on the topic, I have asked graduate faculty about theory in practice and usually get very negative feedback with derogatory comments about nurses in practice not being the academic elite, that it takes experts in nursing theory to understand the nuances of it. There again, if it is to complicated for practicing nurses to understand, can it really be guiding there practice?