THE SOCIAL BODY AND THE BIOMECHANICAL BODY - CAN THEY COEXIST IN NURSE EDUCATION

The curricula of tertiary nursing courses usually involve a number of complementary strands, These include biological sciences, social scien ces, behavioural sciences, other support subjects and clinical units. These different strands each, to some extent, present the nursing stud ent with a dilemma as they may present entirely different models of th e body. Explorations of this dilemma show that students are also being presented with different models of illness and different conceptions of appropriate health care response to illness, The question is then r aised as to which of these approaches most accurately reflects the rea lities of nursing practice.