WHAT ARE NURSES DOING TO PATIENTS - A REVIEW OF THEORIES OF NURSING PAST AND PRESENT

This paper looks critically at the nature of nursing theory from three perspectives. Firstly, it examines the current state of nursing theor y with a particular focus on Patricia Benner's work. This examination concludes that nursing theory is currently beset by the problems of sc ientific and moral relativism and philosophical incoherence because it has abandoned a traditional realist approach to the care of patients. Secondly, the roots of this contemporary nursing position are analyse d and the conclusion is reached that nursing theorists are implicitly presuming this traditional 'common sense' view of nursing, although th eir own philosophical assumptions do not support it and indeed are rem oving the ground from beneath it.The traditional theory underpinning t he quality of the nurse's care, and hence the ethos of nursing, is rea rticulated. In conclusion it is suggested that nursing needs to debate the modernist views that are now holding sway in nursing and rediscov er a theory for the care of patients that holds together the personal, the pastoral, the scientific and the technological aspects of patient care.