EDITORIAL
Currently there are perceptible changes in all areas of knowledge. These changes are considered dynamic and contribute to advances within their respective professions. Of course, some of these advances affect Nursing, interfering in its configuration as a profession of care for the human being.
However, this dynamic reality causes difficulties in accompanying the change process for nurses. The technological and organizational advances contribute for the development of activities inherent to the profession, but at the same time demand nearly super-human effort from the professionals in order to learn how to perform given a series of activities that are continuously more complex, delicate, and technical.
What one hopes for is that the technical advances aid in completing one's work, contributing so that the nurse could be better equipped to be human and be with the human to whom the nurse is giving care. However, one observes continuously greater separation between the nurse and the human receiving nursing care, both in academic reports and in the day-to-day practice of nursing. Time and patience are both more and more limited, whether for personal care or care for others. This unleashes a generalized indifference from society towards the human factor, which interferes and reflects itself in health care, as well.
Considering the aforementioned with the intent of contributing to the day-to-day practice of Nursing, the theme of reflecting upon the Methods, models, and modes of caring in Nursing in this issue of the Texto & Context Nursing Journal creates a medium for sharing related knowledge and experience. This makes a certain exchange possible, and with that will aid in alerting professionals to the search for the best possible tools to exercise humanized care, based upon the best science has to offer.
The human being no longer passively accepts dehumanized and compartmented care, being seen as a summation of "pieces". Rather, he/she wants to be seen as a single being; whole, indivisible, irreplaceable, and complete in their conception of interaction. Their conception of interaction includes their relationships with other people, their environments, and the world around them, in which they express their beliefs and values, which permeate their every action.
The utilization of different methods, models, and modes for caring offers an opportunity for the nurse to perform professional care in such a way that he/she moves towards the wants and needs of the human being under their care.
We all consciously or subconsciously act according to a method, follow a model, and have a mode of performance to our activities, whether in Nursing or another knowledge area. If we pay attention to our routine, we can observe that in the majority of cases we act similarly every day, repeating actions, from the most simple to the most complex. There is a reason for this; we accomplish our activities ruled by empirical knowledge, learned through pre-established and/or scientifically based day-to-day routines which we repeat each time we act. Many times we do this without consideration, without searching for more efficient modes, without seeking to update our knowledge, without remembering the velocity and the dynamic nature of the advance of knowledge in our time.
The method, model, or mode which we make use of attempts to organize and direct our performance, however complex it might seem at first. After we are familiar with the process, it serves to facilitate our work, guaranteeing better quality in the care given. Thus, the systemization of scientifically based care leads us to reflect, to be continuously searching to improve the care given. It awakes a certain reflection concerning various questions, some of which are: What is the Nursing to which I am currently involved? What is the health-sickness process to which the human being is exposed? What do we mean when we say, "environment"? As much to create methods, models, and modes for Nursing care, as to apply them in our day-to-day practice, we find ourselves needing to return to the essence of Nursing, which from the Nightengalean perspective is an art; one could even say the most beautiful of the arts.
Telma Elisa Carraro, PhD.
Professor of the Post-Graduate Nursing Program(PEN) at UFSC
Coordinator of the Research Group, Caring and Comforting PEN/UFSC
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
13 Aug 2008 -
Date of issue
June 2005
