Fundamental Patterns Of Knowing In Nursing Summary

I define my philosophy of nursing within the three nursing domains of person, health, and environment. My goal is to communicate the importance of nursing as a knowledge-based career, depending not only on the nurse fulfilling her role but also on the patient’s compliance. A patient must learn to provide self-care at home in the same capacity as the nurse would provide care in the clinical setting. I discuss various subjects within nursing. I explain why I want to be a nurse, what I believe a nurse’s role is, the different domains of nursing, and where I believe nursing will be in the future. My philosophy demonstrates the interdependence of the nursing domains. You cannot fully evaluate a person without evaluating their health,

Therefore, it is necessary to examine the nature of nursing and the knowledge base nurses bring to the clinical setting to define the scope of nursing practice (Berragan, 1998). To better understand nursing practice, Barbara Carper in 1978 identified four patterns of knowing nurses adopt in clinical practice. They are empiric knowing, ethical knowing, personal knowing, and aesthetic knowing.

It is essential in nursing to continue learning and applying knowledge to the everyday practice. In doing so, it is important to understand how to organize, test, and apply knowledge to nursing. Barbara Carper identified four fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing which are necessary for the teaching and learning of nursing. Carper's four fundamental patterns of knowing in nursing are defined as empirical, ethical, personal and

Barbara Carper’s Fundamental Patterns of Knowing in Nursing explains the several patterns of knowing as they impact nursing theory development. Carper identified four types of knowing in nursing. These four types of patterns of knowing are: empirical knowing, aesthetics, ethical knowing and personal knowing. This author will analyze these four patterns of knowing and how they relate to nursing today.

Nursing care incorporates not only a compassionate attitude but passion for care of patients. The caring component of nursing cannot be measured, rather dissected through theory within the clarification of what nurses do. Systemically this is all supported through abundant theories and theorist. The nursing profession emphasizes on holistic care which is defined as treatment of the whole person. Within this skill is the admittance of problems that are biomedical but also opportune clarification of the well-being and health of a human that introduces added indicators of disease that are non-visualized (Powers, 2011).

Nursing is not just a collection of tasks. To provide safe and effective care to the clients, nurses must integrate knowledge, skills and attitudes to make sound judgement and decisions. This essay describes some of the essential knowledge, skills and attitudes of nursing and discusses why they are essential attributes of a competent nurse.

In the nursing profession we are able to use multiple ways of knowing. We may not use them all at the same time and some more than the others, but we do use them. “Four fundamental patterns of knowing have been identified from an analysis of the conceptual and syntactical structure of nursing knowledge” (Reed & Crawford Shearer, 2012, p. 200). The four patterns of knowing include: empirical, esthetics, personal, and ethical.

Throughout the first year Foundations of Professional Nursing course, I have gained a better understand of nursing and thus my perspective on nursing has developed a lot. After learning about the different concepts and theories in nursing, I feel I understand the role of nurses better and it makes me proud to have chosen this profession. I have also realized how much the concepts I have learned this year have affected my perspective on nursing and have helped shape me into becoming a nurse. In addition, I have been able to develop a personal philosophy of nursing. This paper will examine the importance of a sub- concept to nursing, reflect on my personal journey of development as a nurse and discuss my personal philosophy of nursing.

How do nurses know what to do? Most would answer that a nurse knows what to do because of the knowledge instilled in them while in school and clinical. But, it is important to refer to the question: How do nurses know? Before this discussion, I would have agreed that knowledge and knowing are the same concept; however, after reviewing Zander’s “Ways of Knowing in Nursing: The Historical Evolution of a Concept,” I agree that, although they are related, the concepts are different. Zander (2007) states knowledge precedes knowing in that it “is the general knowledge an individual possesses prior to entering a discipline such as nursing” (p. 8). Later, however, she visits the ideas of Chinn and Kramer who link knowledge and knowing oppositely stating, “ways of knowing lead to nursing knowledge, rather than knowledge being the basis for knowing in nursing” (Zander, 2007, p. 9). Whether one believes knowledge is established first, knowing establishes knowledge, or vice versa, the important point is that knowledge and knowing are not interchangeable, but separate concepts that contribute to each other. Zander (2007) cites many authors in order to conceptualize different ways of knowing. The foundation of her article is derived from Carper’s four patterns of nursing; however, she includes ideas from other authors who either expanded upon or operationalized Carper’s original work (Zander, 2007, p.

Without nursing history, nursing would not be the same. For example, Nightingale’s thirteen tenets set the basis of nursing. All these tenets become apparent while promoting health, preventing illness, and while providing care for clients. Additionally, Carper’s four fundamental ways of knowing allows us, as nurses, to think critically, provide holistic care (also apart of Waton’s theory), build therapeutic relationships, follow the code of ethics, and also encourage us to extrapolate data effectively. Nonetheless, Paterson and Zderad, as well as Leininger, set the foundation for nurses to care for each client as their own, using a humanistic, existentialistic, and culturally sensitive approach. Generally, each of these theories allow nurses to acquire new knowledge and skills, altering thoughts and emotions, ultimately enabling us to apply our newfound knowledge into real life situations, which will prove useful in clinical placements next

When looking at Nursing as a profession, it is important to identify the body of knowledge which pertains to its profession. According to Carper (1978) the body of knowledge that serves as a rationale for nursing practice has patterns, forms and structure. Understanding these patterns is essential for the teaching and learning of nursing as a profession. Carper (1978) identifies four fundamental patterns of knowing and are known to be empirics, ethical, aesthetics and personal knowledge. Chinn & Kramer (2008) added the fifth pattern to knowing called Emancipatory knowing to address the issues of equality and justice. This essay will explain the five ways of knowing and show how it relates to my nursing practice.

So I bring up this controversial topic again, about both mental and physical health and how important it is to take some time out of our crazy busy lives as nurses just to sit with our patients for a few minutes to discuss their pain. By pain, I mean both mental and physical pain. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a situation I was involved in as a nursing student in the clinical setting and how I can critically analyze this situation using Carper’s Fundamental Patterns of Knowing in Nursing (1978). This model has helped many practitioners to consider what they learn throughout reflection on their experience within a holistic way.

Theoretical knowledge is the knowledge that nurse researchers established by gathering valuable ideas from books or other resources. These ideas applied through theoretical only.

Ethical knowing -this is gotten from the values of the individual (personal) and the profession. Nurse actions are based on one obligations duty and rights.

By outlining the focus and boundaries of the discipline nursing is able to highlight areas of study that are significant to nursing education and practice, all of which can be traced back to the fundamental concepts. These central ideas feature as integral to nursing development and continue to demonstrate their influence by shaping the way nurses learn and do. The concepts of person, health, environment and nursing are all interrelated, as are the concepts put forward by Newman, Smith, Dexheimer-Pharris and Jones (2008), and can be identified as prominent in nursing studies and the development of nursing theories. The nursing theories based on these fundamental concepts serve as the building blocks for all nursing knowledge and as Smith and Parker (2010) explain “the primary purpose of nursing theories is to further the development and understanding of nursing practice” (p. 8). The structure of knowledge as described by Smith and Parker provides a clear example of how nursing metaparadigms have implications for all levels of nursing theory, education and research from the most abstract or global concepts to the more concrete