I do recognize the need for nursing theory

Kelly_the_Great · Dec 15, 2005

[referring to Tulip1] I am enjoying reading your posts on this debate. Actually sometimes, you are really funny. Keep posting. I have started from the beginning of this debate, looking up the words I am not familiar with and preparing for my Theory course in Jan.

I agree! The funniest was when she made mention of the "Caritas Factors." Also, I thought the receptive aphasia was pretty good too...lol

Thank you Tulip1 and everyone else. You have made me interested in taking this theory course, so I can form my own opinion lol Krisssy RN MA

I thank everyone as well for allowing me to ask questions. The thread has been, as someone else stated earlier, so thought-provoking. And I have gained new insight. I feel very fortunate. :)

ZASHAGALKA, RN · Dec 15, 2005

An excellent observation, Spaniel. I have a sister-in-law who is a brand new nurse and I was perusing Amazon for books about nursing... anything readable and informative, fun or provocative. The choices were very limited. Seemed odd to me. There are lots of nurses. They stand as (at the least) observers if not participants in human drama.
Are there no poets among us? No humorists, essayists?
And academics are sometimes the worst writers in the world. Second only to students.

Ok, I think I'll take your words to heart.

So, who has recommendations on chapter topics?

~faith,

Timothy.

Gennaver, MSN · Dec 15, 2005

If you have read or heard about these books written by nurses, I am curious about what you think: What is your opinion of the Echo Heron books? I have read Intensive Care , and I am now reading Condition Critical. What is your opinion of Walking Like A Duck by Patricial Halloran. I am enjoying reading your posts on this debate. Actually sometimes, you are really funny. Keep posting. I have started from the beginning of this debate, looking up the words I am not familiar with and preparing for my Theory course in Jan. Thank you Tulip1 and everyone else. You have made me interested in taking this theory course, so I can form my own opinion lol Krisssy RN MA

Hi there,

I remember reading Echo Heron books, (were there only two of them?) It has been a bit but, and I do not have a strong opinion either way.

I had to read "Ninth street Notebook, voice of a nurse in the city" by Vaneta Masson before starting my current program. I liked it and her writing style.

Gen

1Tulip · Dec 15, 2005

Ok, I think I'll take your words to heart.
So, who has recommendations on chapter topics?
~faith,
Timothy.

I shoud think you have to decide your genre first. Collected essays, maybe? And your audience... the general reading public or the nursing community? (If you want to make money and have the big book tour... or get selected by Oprah for her book club... it will have to be a general audience.) Anyway, if you collected essays, they could range from funny to tragic. And yes, it would have to include Nsg Theory for the Uninitiated, a light-hearted romp through the academic ozone.

Timothy!!! This should become a new thread! Why don't you start it?

krisssy · Dec 31, 2005

OMG - so very :yeahthat: :yeahthat: I don't see how nursing theories make us anything like more professional. The established professions don't do it - there's no Theory of Law (or Theory of Lawyering), and certainly no attempt to create an overarching Theory of Medicine.
For an interesting take, see the late great Jef Raskin's article "Humbug: Nurisng Theory" - http://jef.raskincenter.org/published/NursingTheoryForSite.html He doesn't say Rogers had aphasia, but...

Since I am starting my graduate theory course next month, I have been rereading all the posts on this thread. I have gone as far as post 25.I have been looking up unfamiliar words in the dictionary, and everything has been going fine. I am trying to understand Martha Rodgers through this article by Jef Raskin. Now Jeff's article is fine, BUT when I got to the part subtitled, "Martha Rodger's and her Theory", I started to get frustrated. I have searched and searched the dictionary and the web. Maybe someone can help me. What kind of wave patterns and principle of resonancy is she referring to? Is this related to physics(which I have never taken) or is this related to the universal principle which underpins why we are drawn to some people and circumstances and yet avoid others? Or is it trying to make physics analgous to some kind of psychology? If someone can explain which meaning of of "wave patterns" and which meaning of "principle of resonancy", she is referring to, I could try and figure this out-maybe. Thanks Krisssy -new grad student-first theory course!

1Tulip · Dec 31, 2005

You know, Krissy... I don't know. And I don't know of anyone else who does. And Martha is dead and can't tell us what she meant, if she ever knew.

Here's what I've noticed in Nsg. departments in Universities. There are some gals (seems always to be females, but I digress) who are big on theory. And they throw these words and terms around. And if you ask the sort of question you just asked, only a select few will try to respond. The others will roll their eyes and suck their teeth and try to make you feel like a big dummy for asking. Of those that try to answer you, most will give you an answer that raises as many questions as the original one for which you were trying to get an answer.

Now don't get me wrong. They sincerely want you to understand the theory. But they are unable to use transparent language. Absolutely incapable. So here's what happens. You go to professor A. You ask a specific question. She starts running around the barn but you pin her down with another specific question. After a long while, you imagine you've gotten an answer. At least you've formulated in your mind, what you think the answer is based upon professor A's ramblings. But the next week when you're talking to professor B and you her what you learned the week before, she (professor B) will start humming and hawing and obfuscating what you thought you understood. Worse still, if you say you learned it from professor A, she (professor A) will wiggle out of it and claim you misunderstood.

I swear. This happened to me so many times, it was laughable.

Good luck. Keep a sense of humor, but don't let anyone on the faculty know that you think it is a big joke. Act like it's the most serious thing in the world and the profession will cease to exist if the Theory Gospel isn't spread abroad.

spaniel · Jan 2, 2006

Hi there- Ohthis stuff is so much fun. Can you just imagine Martha Rodgers theory in a novel with Cherry Ames? ( For all you young ones, Cherry Ames was a WWII era Student Nurse who job hopped to being an Army Nurse,of course... then took on various roles.. Flight Nurse.. Dude Ranch Nurse.) As many of you may know, Cherry Ames "signed up" to go into the Army like

almost all of her class.

Tulip and Krissy- I like the academic ozone. But Tulip- your advice is sound!! Beware of any ivory elite who pretends "to know".

Still and all I think that theorists like Rodgers were way ahead of their time in the sense that I feel the theory really points to the holistc. BUT -you are so right- if only she had written for the "general public." That is the big issue I have with nursing.

Wave particles- Krissy- who the heck knows. I do know that Martha Rodgers certainly felt that "the body" extended its energy way past it's physical bounderies. So yea, maybe as you suggest- could be a reason why some people "sense" things- have a six sense, claim to see "auras"...

I knew many an NYU nurse. You HAD to know Martha... and you had to take a physics course before going to grad school there!(That was Martha Rodgers's stomping ground.)

1Tulip · Jan 2, 2006

Over the holidays, I have been off (Yaaayyyy!) and done some casual reading. I got a book for Christmas on Western Civilization. (Now you're sure I'm a nerd, yes?) Anyhow, the author raises the question about why modern science developed in the West, and not in other civilizations like ancient China, Babylonia, Mayan/Aztec cultures etc. Mind you, there were brilliant accomplishments in each of these cultures... astronomy, algebra, and so on, but empirical science did not flower in them, but did in the West. Why?

His contention: In these pagan cultures, the universe was considered to have an animate soul and, in some sense, wills of their own. Under these circumstances, it was presumptuous, if not futile for mankind to attempt to predict the behavior of the spheres. And this is sort of odd, since many ancient cultures did follow astronomical phenomena in amazing detail. But then, of course, they prayed to the gods asking them to maintain their favorable courses. In contrast, in the Christian West, the Universe was understood to be a created product of an omnicient, omnipotent Mind... a Law Giver, an orderly Intellect, the "Great Geometer". So, then... to study the Universe was to think the thoughts of God after Him. If the world confused them (the Medieval scholastics of early Western Universities), it wasn't because of a capricious spirit of the air, or earth, or sky... it was because they hadn't yet gotten the right data to understand the phenomenon under study.

Now: Why did this make me think of the weirder of the Nsg Theorists (Rogers and Watson.) I have said earlier in this thread, that they were offering a pseudo-religion not unlike the ancient gnostics. Especially when they get into "Holism". For them, Holistic existence means that we are (I am) connected to everything in the Universe by a force, or universal soul (made up of waves/particles). My being is not truely separate from my patient's, or from the tree in my front yard, or the dumpster in the alley behind the corner dive. This gives to inanimate substance, a kind of soul... not much different than my own. If I have free will, then so do the other inhabitants of nature.

Friends... you can NOT DO SCIENCE in this framework. You have no solid intellectual or philosophical ground on which to build a logical epistemology! Nothing in a "Holistic" universe is determined or predictable, let alone measureable.

Thus, the weirder (gnostic) Nursing Theories represent a flight from reason and a headlong sprint back into the Dark Ages of the Mind.

spaniel · Jan 2, 2006

Ah Tulip1- Ummmm ever think of drawing IgE levels after singing in a large group singing "Ode to Joy"-Beethoven's Ninth...or wonder about the serotonin levels. But "waves"-nope we're not there yet.

I thought a bit about what you wrote re the "Dark Ages"- I thought-ah-what is the danger? But indeed when I look back at some of the earlier clinical psychology/psychiatry theories,yes-I do see the danger. Practices were built on extremely shaky ground. I still own many a "textbook".

Kelly_the_Great · Jan 2, 2006

Do you think this might be the great, new debate of science...Newtonian (predictable) physics/law vs. quantum (possibility/randomness/unpredictability) physics/mechanics? Is it energy (wave) or particle? They say it all depends upon the observer...??? :confused:

I did some recreational reading myself over break. A Million Little Pieces and What the Bleep Do we Know!?. The latter is about quantum physics (I'm a nerd too, i guess...lol) and how, basically, you can become your own God (didn't know this going into it - thought it was a more or less "quantum discussion for dummies" type thing) and create your own destiny, yada, yada, yada. It's interesting and gives you something to ponder but it was written by 3 members of an organization that some view as a cult. This supposed cult is made up followers of this guy who's supposed to be 35,000 y/o channeled through some lady from NM and they have a lot of celebrity followers in their mix, one of them being Shirley MacClain.

Anyway, I was doing some looking into what was behind the book and discovered the above mentioned association. I also discovered that holism is something they heavily promote much in the same lines of Watson's "A caring science perspective is grounded in a relational ontology of being-in-relation, and a world view of unity and connectedness of All." BTW, is the capitalizing of "all" supposed to denote Godliness to all? They also are big believers in therapeutic touch, healing touch (sometimes they call it quantum touch).

I'm left feeling even more, I don't know, dissatisfied, somehow? My interest of quantum physics was 1st piqued when reading a chemistry book designed for Christian homeschoolers to supplement my required textbook, since I didn't have it in highschool. I've found sometimes, approaching things from a different view helps increase your understanding (must've worked - got 1 of only 2 A's given ). Anyway, what roused my curiosity was how they described the characteristics of the electron being both wave and particulate in nature - they compared this to the saved Christian having a duality of nature - being both of the flesh & of the spirit.

This theory of possibilities - perhaps this is what explains our free will and why we, humans, don't follow predictable routines in our actions. Oh well, thanks for th' ramble... :bugeyes: :rolleyes:

1Tulip · Jan 3, 2006

Yeah, Kelly. My impression is that when Holists write all as ALL, they are talking about a Grand Entity of some sort, not god or God so much since the creator is not separable/distinguishable from the creation. But the difficulty with reading anything they write is that language for them is very fluid. You'll never catch them in an inconsistancy, because their use of a word can change. Failing that, when you think you have what their saying... they'll claim there's some nuance to the words that you (an unenlightened one) cannot apprehend.

Has anyone tried to channel Martha Rogers yet????

krisssy · Jan 3, 2006

Spaniel, you are too funny. I LOVED those Cherry Ames books, and they helped me decide to go to a hospital based nursing school. BUT, unfortunately for me, I changed my mind at the last minute and went to a university based BS program. BIG MISTAKE! I wish I had gone for a diploma, then BS and then MS. In those days, late 60's, university schools did not have internships and externships like they have now. I did not have enough practical experience, and at that time there was no such thing as a precepter. So I truly believe that in those days, it would have been best to go through a diploma program first. There also were no AD programs. Speaking of NYU, my refresher course teacher graduated from there in the early 80's and had never given an injection in four years. At least I had done that twice!

Now to the topic of channeling Martha Rodger's. I have been trying to understand Jeff Raskin's article. I am up to the sidebar (Rogers in her Own Words). Well I have been trying to understand why Martha's effort to use physics to understand nursing didn't make sense , because she didn't understand physics, particularly thermodynamics. Last night I was actually sitting here looking up physics words on an online homework helper class in physics. I have index cards for thermodynamics, wave patterns, principle of resonancy, entropy (in order to figure out negative entropy), the second law of thermodunamics and frequencies. Then I am trying to understand how these words and concepts work into an article which explains why Martha

Roger's theory had to have been wrong , because she didn't understand Physics. I never even took Physics in highschool. All this to take a theory course to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner???????????????? I HAVEN'T EVEN FIGURED OUT HOW tHERAPEUTIC TOUCH fits into all this physics stuff yet. It is extremely hard to understand this having no background in Physics. I am assuming that Martha loved Physics and was trying very hard to put it into her career of nursing even though it was not working. Now I am just beginning Darwinian Evolution and how and why her theory on that is wrong. If any of you have read the sidebar of that article, what did you think? Did you understand it? It is driving me crazy, but I have decided that I must understand this before I start my course on 1/17. Is that totally crazy? ????????????????????????????????????????????? Whoever wrote this analysis of Martha Roger's quotes, must have understood this. I am doing my best but?????????????????????? If anyone has read it and feels like explaining, gee that would be great! Krisssy

I *do* recognize the need for nursing theory

I do recognize the need for nursing theory