NR 501 Week 4 Connection Between Theory and Advanced Clinical Practice

Sample Answer

Nursing theory has an important role in clinical practice. Theory has been recognized as the tool to making our practice a “rational knowledge based science” (Mao, 2015, p. 13). I feel that many people feel that theory has no place in clinical practice because of the abstract ideas and terminology that is involved. Mao (2015) gives the example of the nurse practitioner who’s main focus is curing rather than caring, while most theory is centered in caring as the primary nursing goal. “Currently, there is an explosion on the number of nursing theories, but not the usage of nursing theory” (Mao, 2015, p. 13).

However, I feel that theory is at the base of clinical practice. Every intervention that we perform as nurses is based in theory. You may not actively think to yourself, “today I am applying Orem’s theory of Self Care to my practice,” but you are still educating your new onset diabetic patient on insulin administration. I think that taking time to understand and simplify theory would make it easier to use it to improve clinical practice. For example, Martha Rogers’ theory the Science of Unitary Human Beings sounds pretty abstract when you read about it. It talks about energy fields and uses big words like resonance and helicy (Rahim, 2016).

However, at its core the theory is just talking about the patient and their relationship to their environment. The patient and their environment are two things that are constantly interacting with one another and affecting one another (Rahim, 2016). We apply this idea to nursing all of the time. We are taught in nursing school to look at our patients holistically and assess all of the factors that could be affecting their health. When I receive a patient I am constantly assessing their family dynamic. I am thinking about what their home situation is like and what help they will need at discharge.

I am taking into account the hospital environment and its affect on them. Finally, I am taking into account their illness and how it is affecting their reaction to the hospital environment. At no point in my day am I going to think to myself that I am applying Mary Rogers’ theory, but I am applying it because my training as a nurse was based upon it. I think that the argument that theory does not apply to real life practice exists just because there needs to be an effort to simplify it and realize that it is already occurring in our everyday practice.

References

• Mao, A. (2015). The gap of nursing theory and nursing practice is it too wide to bridge? Macau Journal of Nursing, 14(1), 13-20. Retrieved from http //web.b.ebscohost.com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=31&sid=fd5498a1-42f5-4660-88a2-6b5fee7ebaaf%40sessionmgr120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=ccm&AN=113930388 (Links to an external site.)
• Rahim, L. (2016). Comparison between two nursing theories Rogers and Leddy. Journal on Nursing, 6(1), 1-5. Retrieved from http //web.a.ebscohost.com.chamberlainuniversity.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=472994c4-62a3-42ca-94e5-95386a361761%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=116359098&db=ccm