Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1978, 3, 331-332

Editorial PROFESSING N U R S I N G T H R O U G H THE C U R R I C U L U M There is a good deal of emphasis these days on the need to identify the ohjectives of nursing curriculum and that is not altogether a had thing provided that the emphasis on ohjective setting does not detract from the need to also give a great deal of attention to the educational process. A process that should identify nursing as a problem-solving activity for, as Allen (1977) has so perceptively observed, 'It is through solving more and more complex problems that students learn to nurse . . . The critical function of the teacher of nursing is the ability to provide the conditions whereby the student can interact in a problem-solving way with the patient situation'. A problem-solving perspective is particularly important as nurses being trained today must be able to function in constantly changing health care situations when knowledge and skills acquired in one decade may well be useless, irrelevant and obsolete in the next. At the beginning of this decade, a World Health Organization working group on European trends in the nursing services was told by Simpson (1970), in no uncertain terms, that the existing health care system 'is not sacrosanct' and she argued that it does and should evolve to accommodate new discoveries. Aspects ofthe service outgrow their usefulness, Simpson said, and account has to be taken of new developments: 'If rigid adherence to practices ofthe past is undesirable, care has also to be taken that in meeting exigencies of today, mortgaging the service of the future is avoided'. Simpson's foresight was endorsed recently by Hockey (1977), who identified the many patients (the elderly, the very ill, the disabled, the handicapped, and the dying) in the present changing health care setting to whom medical treatment has Httle to offer, 'and the nurse may take over completely as the provider of care', she opined. Another changing emphasis in nursing, noted by a group of British nurses in 1977, led to the conclusion that nurses should strive for 'the rationalization of all hospital and community nursing services to improve the continuity of service from hospital to community and the firm commitment of everyone in the service to preventive care and health education' (Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services 1977). 'Nursing is a complex set of acts mediated through a particular relationship that the nurse estabhshes with the patient. For this reason, nurses are required to be responsive to situations that are continually changing, always keeping the goal in mind', Allen (1977) reminds us. How reassuring it is, therefore, to harken Professor Annie Altschul's (1977) plea, made in her inaugural lecture as professor of nursing studies in the University of Edinburgh, to 'profess' nursing. To profess 0309-2402/78/0700-03 3 i$O2.oo

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nursing is to make ntirsing one's business, to believe that nursing is a profession based on a foundation of science, to believe that the care of the mentally ill and mentally handicapped is the work of nurses. And, on the one hand, regarding as the proper concern of nurses a great deal of the work which others see as either marginal or non-nursing work, whilst, on the other hand, being prepared to disassociate oneself from nursing and to profess solidarity with other professions, whatever their title, if nurses are willing to perform only a small part of the work which the patient or client needs to have performed and when a mtiltitude of other professionals claim the territory which nurses have then vacated. 'If we profess nursing as I think we should profess it'. Professor Altschul contends, 'the student will learn to read critically, to question assumptions, to ask for evidence, to argue, to synthesize and to express herself clearly. She will acquire the capacity for self-criticism without loss of self-respect and self-confidence . . . The student will benefit not from course content, but from the process of study.' Thus armed. Professor Altschul argues, the student 'should be able at first to give primary health care which will satisfy the patients' needs, and later to develop expertise which will allow her to exercise leadership and to influence patient care indirectly through her work with other primary health care workers'. It seems to me that professing nursing should be an essential attribute of all nursing curriculum developers. References ALLEN M . (1977) Evaluation of Educational Programmes in Nursing. World Health Organization, Geneva. ALTSCHUL A. (1977) Professing Nursing. Inaugural lecture no. 62. University of Edinburgh. HOCKEY L. (1977) The nurse's contribution to care in a changing setting. Journal of Advanced Nursing 2, 147-156. NORTHERN IRELAND DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCLAL SERVICES (1977) Report on the Eeasibility

of Achieving Economies and Increased Efficiency in the Hospital and Community Nursing Service. Northern Ireland DHSS, Belfast. SIMPSON H.M. (1970) The Use and Productivity of Nursing Resources within the Existing Health Care System. World Health Organization European Office, Copenhagen.

James P. Smith

Professing nursing through the curriculum.

Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1978, 3, 331-332 Editorial PROFESSING N U R S I N G T H R O U G H THE C U R R I C U L U M There is a good deal of emphas...
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