Nursing & Nursing Science

DEFINITION OF NURSING

Nursing integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alleviation of suffering through compassionate presence. Nursing is the diagnosis and treatment of human responses and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations in recognition of the connection of all humanity. 

ANA (2021). Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice, Fourth Edition, p. 1.

To me, nursing is the labor of love and conscience; a human act of protecting a vulnerable person and his entire world!

DEFINITION OF SCIENCE

According to Oxford Dictionary, Science is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. 

Science is the use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process. (National Academy of Sciences, 2008 )

To me, science is the disciplined way of knowing and explaining the world within us and the world around us. 

DEFINITION OF NURSING SCIENCE

According to Elizabeth Ann Manhart Barrett (2002), nursing is a basic science with various nursing schools of thought that constitute the substantive knowledge of the discipline. Matthias Fedyk (2023) describes that nursing science is a “sui generis social science” which studies how to reconcile clinical ideals or norms with the messiness of human behavior as it appears in real-world practice.

To me, Nursing science is the body of knowledge that gives a solid base to the art of caring. It transforms the fundamental human impulse of coexistence and compassion into a systematic, logical, and evidence-guided action 

@slam | a SLAM for a parallel world!