"disturbed Energy Field" ...Really?

[dannyc12]

Hello Everyone,

Like many fellow students, I've got my nose in the Pocket Guide as a resource for using patient data to create care plans. My intent here is not to debate the usefulness of Care Plans or Nursing Diagnosis.

Quite a few authors have written about the pains the nursing profession has gone through to gain credibility, - from the public, from doctors, and from administrators. Our curriculum is lousy with buzzwords like Critical Thinking, Objective Data, Scientific Method, Theory....on and on.

According to a few authors, like Suzanne Gordon in "Nursing Against the Odds," Nursing Diagnosis is currently looked on by many outside nursing (and many inside) as unintelligible nonsense filled with verbal gymnastics to avoid mentioning medical diagnosis. Before we even began studying nursing process, one of my fellow students noted, "That Diagnosis stuff is pure BS." I didn't concur because I had not studied it yet. It looks to me like the system described could be useful.

But when you have something like "Disturbed Energy Field" as a NANDA-I diagnosis, aren't we just proving the critics right? One of the Nursing Priorities laid out in the Nurse's Pocket Guide is to, "Evaluate the Energy Field." This consists of "Moving hands slowly over client at a level of 2 to 6 inches above to the skin to assess the state of energy field and flow of energy within the system." There is more of this magician snake oil healer intervention the nurse is supposed to perform following that "procedure": "Perform unruffling process, keeping hands 2 to 6 inches away from client's body to dissipate impediments to free flow of energy within the system and between the nurse and the client."

Please. This new age claptrap was debunked decades ago. If you disagree, then you must be able to feel, manipulate, and heal energy fields and auras and whatnot. Good for you, a guy named James Randi has a million dollars waiting for you if you can prove it. Trouble is, every time a scientific inquiry was performed - the practitioner failed. Here's his website:

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

I'm fine if the client reports subjectively that their, "Chakras are jammed," or they are, "having trouble breathing through their left eyelid." But the acceptance of this snake oil - complete with shaman/nurse interventions - only hurts the profession and gives ammunition to those who belittle the Nursing Process

I don't have any problem with people seeking this type of healing intervention at all if they believe in it. But does it belong in the nursing profession? If a client claims they are possessed by a demon, we don't perform an exorcism for pity's sake. We call psych and social services right before the priest in that case (and keep an eye on all three of them!).

Why isn't this type of hoodoo kept in the psychic healer/palm reader/faith healer fraud shop where it belongs? Couldn't we at least ship it over to Chiropractic?

Thanks,

dc

[mindlor]

Right there with ya Danny.

I am about to start nursing school!! Are you telling me that I am going to actually encounter things like this in a Nursing Program?

Perhaps I should skip the nursing and cruise on over to Physicians Assistant school????

[GilaRRT]

Ladies and gentlemen, get your flame throwers out.

Much of this nursing process stuff is utterly bazaar IMHO. You are correct that nurse talk or Nursikaans (Humor for any South Africans on this site.) is simply a "nurse" oriented way to say something. For example, I see a cyanotic guy stand up holding his throat while eating a massive steak, and I hypothesize that he is choking and has an airway obstruction. However, we teach nursing students that it should be described as ineffective airway clearance. So, nurses are somehow unique because they can apply really strange names to problems.

While the nursing process is not bad, it is not really that unique. You assess and find a problem, make your plan, act, then assess to see if your action actually worked. Rude awakening, every body who is involved in patient care is taught nearly the exact same process. Difference being, the terminology.

Therefore, for the most part, I really have no problem with the nursing process other than the bizarre terminology that students are forced to learn in school. Unfortunately, this push to prove we are our own unique profession only works against students who must adapt to the realities of a totally different working environment. While nursing theory would make a nice lecture or class, the emphasis should be on education nurses how to survive in the real world.

As far as disturbed energy field, I will think on that a bit. In really sick patients, the electron transport chain shuts down in under-perfused cells, leading to loss of proton motive gradient. Since protons (hydrogen without an electron) are positively charged and in essence provide energy to drive complex IV of the ETC, I suppose stating disturbed energy field would be a cool way of saying your patient is in shock and not doing well. Or, we could just look at the lactate?

[GilaRRT]

Right there with ya Danny.

I am about to start nursing school!! Are you telling me that I am going to actually encounter things like this in a Nursing Program?

Perhaps I should skip the nursing and cruise on over to Physicians Assistant school????

Except its generally a bit more complicated than simply deciding to change you major and having your academic advisor add you into the next PA class. By the way, it's "Physician Assistant," not "Physicians."

[MedicalLPN, LPN]

First of all, you're never going to have to lay hands on someone and assess their energy field when you get out in clinicals and on the job. Second of all, I don't think it's any crazier for someone to believe their "chakras are jammed" than for someone to believe their "faith is being tested" during illness. I think spirituality in whatever form it comes in (as long as it's positive) is great and really assists with the healing process. That being said, does "Disturbed Energy Field" have a place as I nursing dx? I don't think it does. But I can gurantee you that once you're out of nursing school, you're not going to walk into any type of setting where part of your assessment and documentation is spent on someone's "energy field".

Mindlor, I hope something that trivial wouldn't detur you from pursuing a career in nursing, you don't know what you're missing if you do decide not go into it. Despite the BS, I couldn't imagine doing anything else where I could directly help so many people in many different ways.

[MedicalLPN, LPN]

I suppose stating disturbed energy field would be a cool way of saying your patient is in shock and not doing well.

Haha, I'll second that

[miss81, BSN, RN]

Yeah, total BS. What we really need is to be able to discuss patient's conditions with other professionals so that they have a freakin' what the hell we are talkin' about! It's like we are talking "around" the problem to make sure we don't sound smart, "like a doctor"... hahaha such BS...

[GilaRRT]

No offense with my PA remark; however, calling professions by their proper name is a pet peeve of mine. I do not like it when people say false things about my profession, therefore I feel nurses should call other professionals by their proper name (nursing students included).

[dannyc12]

I suppose stating disturbed energy field would be a cool way of saying your patient is in shock and not doing well.

Sure....but how many patients have you brought out of shock using the NANDA-I disturbed energy field interventions? And how long would spend in jail if you tried?

[HeartsOpenWide, RN]

Don't be so narrow minded. Western Medicine is not the only thing out there that works. If you keep your attitude you will find you will have problems with your patients of different cultures. Read "When the Spirit Catches You", a little girl is extremely disabled because of the narrow minded Western Medicine focused views. Weather you believe in "energy fields" or not your patient may. I had a labor patient tell me I had positive energy when I touched her, I still consider it a huge complement. Just because it is not something you are use to and probably do not understand does not mean it is mumbo-jumbo.

[Whispera, MSN, RN]

Inclusion of nursing diagnoses such as "altered energy field" is based on the work of well-respected theorists such as Martha Rogers and Rosemary Porifice. While I agree that some of their work is quite "out there," some of it makes sense. Accupuncture is based on altered energy field. So are many other methods of healing and wellness, especially some that are very prominent in other cultures. Realizing many will jump down my throat, I still suggest you do some reading, maybe think through the basis of the diagnoses you find wierd, and hold your negative opinions until you have more information, OP.

It's not productive to nursing to indicate you think anyone, including other nurses, who believes one thing or another is wrong just because it's not the status quo. Many nurses do admire the theorists I mentioned. In fact, I've known two who have used that nursing diagnosis in care plans. Never say never!

[miss81, BSN, RN]

Ok, here's the best one, "Environmental Interpretation Syndrome, Impaired". Too funny... the docs would have a laugh at that one...