Nursing, Caring, and Complexity Science: For Human ... - Axon

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prologue
The trans-theoretical identification recognizes the commonalities of
nursing’s philosophy and conceptual frameworks. The commonalities within
nursing also show how the theories relate to the philosophy of the sciences
of complexity, specifically paralleling the central tenets—unitary nature,
connectedness, belongingness, relationship, mutual human– environment
process, energy, pattern, increasing complexity, nonrepeatable phenomena,
self-organization, choice, and transformation (Anderson, Crabtree, Steele, &
McDaniel, 2005; Davidson & Ray, 1991; Davidson, Ray, Cortes, Conboy, &
Norman, 2006; Davidson, Teicher, & Bar-Yam, 1997; Hamilton, Pollack,
Mitchell, Vicenzi, & West, 1997; Lindberg, Nash, & Lindberg, 2008; Ray, 1994,
1998, 2006; Smith, 1999; Vicenzi, White, & Begun, 1997; Watson, 2005, 2008;
Watson & Smith, 2002). Unlike complexity sciences, caring sciences focus on
the uniqueness of the mutual human–environment relational caring process,
which articulates the depth of meaning of caring within the human health
experience from empirical, ethical, aesthetic, personal, and sociocultural patterning
(Carper, 1978; Ray, 2010a; White, 1995). The following is a presentation
of the nature of caring in nursing, Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human
Beings, and complexity sciences and nursing.
The Nature of Caring
Caring is holistic and is the essence of nursing. Nurses and health care
administrators in complex organizations recognize that caring, in the human
health experience, facilitates excellence in nursing care, health care delivery,
and patient outcomes. Caring is not only humanistic, spiritual, and an ethical
phenomenon, but it integrates knowledge of the sociocultural environment,
the technological, economic, political, and legal dimensions into its meaning
structure and conceptual foundation. Caring, as complex, captures the genuine
science of quality because its science is also the art of practice, an aesthetic
which illuminates the beauty of the dynamic nurse–patient relationship, that
makes possible authentic spiritual–ethical choices for transformation—healing,
health, well-being, and a peaceful death. Thus, caring is universal and particular,
ubiquitous in its appeal as the core of nursing philosophy, and particular
in its diversity of expression in nursing practice.
Contemporary nursing practice focuses on creating caring environments
for nurses, patients, and families within today’s complex health care organizations.
With the emergence of the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s
(ANCC) Magnet Recognition Program ® (Magnet), nursing theory has moved
from its central place in academia and research to practice. The majority of
Magnet hospitals have implemented a theoretical framework grounded in
caring science. The theme for the 2010 ANCC National Magnet Conference is
“Magnet: A Culture of Caring.” Watson’s (1985, 2005, 2008) theory of human