Nursing Theory

[AragornSkywalker]

Anyone feel like their books on the "theory" and "concepts" reads more like a DMV manual? Having just gotten my driver's license a month ago, I have that manual fresh in my mind. But this is ten times as long with less pictures! I would read a whole page of jargon and think to myself: "did it just tell me to be caring?"

I feel like im not even soaking in that much cause of how boring half this stuff is. I eagerly await any morsel of clinical references to make sense of all this abstract stuff.

Am I even going to be using half this stuff?

[K.P.A.]

It's only been a few days but I've been reading some about nursing theory...have an APA formatted paper on Dorothea Orem that I have to crank out by Wed...along with a **** load of other work...you may ask yourself, "what is he doing here when he should be working"...I'm not a liberal arts sort. I can't write for ****...so, I'm slowing my brain down a bit before getting back to sorting through all the wild ideas...

You've got to consider the context of these folks that came up with these theories. Orem began developing hers because her career moved her from practicing nurse to educator. We're talking a different formality than her learnign experience as a diploma nurse at a Catholic(Providence in D.C.) hospital. This was back in the 40's and 50's. Nursing was workling it's way collegiate academics. Most of the early theorists were in the same boat. Plus...they were getting PAID to do this. Take a woman in the 40's who is of intellectual bent and stick her in nursing school. It's natural that she's going to want to do more than housekeeping and doctors orders. Then she realizes she's in a wide open field in ediucation...whoopeee.

OK...the theories. I confess, I read a little of Leininger's and could not get past the self aggrandizing for an attempt at grokking. Orem is readable and while somewhat grandiose(her's gets classified as a grand theory by the late comers who don't have a shot a cornerstone position in the field) is quite straightforward and pragmatic. Basically she looked at what nurses do and why people need nursing and wrote it up as a conceptual model. Of course a model needs testing and refinement and that's what she did and now we have taadaa!!! nursing care plans. I thought these were BS at first but really they are just as practical as planning a motorbike restoration. A lot of wasted effort, time, and money is saved by having a model upon which to base your restoration or your nursing system...In other words...youve got a recipe for figuring out what you're gonna do.

What makes Orem's theory grand is that it can be used to model what a practicing nurse is gonna do...care planning for eample...or what a nursing educator is gonna do...teach nursing skills and thinking within a framework that defines nursing...OR EVEN applies to government health care...Yes, Orem soent a lot of the time she was working on her theory in the context of government health care. Her theory provides a framework for statistical measurement of care needs in populations. Included in this framework is the idea that the care that is needed is dependent upon the culture of the population...In a benign sense, one might consider that Chinese would need fewer nursing home beds for the same level of individual self-care deficit among the elderly than say your average cowboy North American. The concept expands nicely to the idea that your share cropper is not familiar with many aspects of modern medicine and therefore will not miss what he does not know exists. Kind of like we don't fear those tiny mosquito sized robots that DODSI has buzzing around our heads to verify that we're not uncircumcised heathens, every time we take a leak outdoors...

OK...enough free form dribble...Time to get started on this paper.

-your friend Katz

ooo ooo ooo, I want some blue. Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer....mmmmuust wwwrite pppaper...