Page 144 - Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring

Fr om carative Fa c t o r 6 t o C ar it as ProC e s s 6
A Caring Science context for knowledge, evidence, the nursing
process, creative problem solving, and decision making reminds us
that while nursing needs theory and scientific methodology to guide
it in research and practice, it will never be an absolute, pure science
such as physics (even though new physics has changed traditional
views of hard science). Caritas Processes within Caring Science allow
for a philosophical-ethical critique of knowledge.
However, for nursing to be a science of caring within a broad ethi-
cal and philosophical context, it must work within an established sci-
entific method but be knowledgeable about and open to other ways
and to contemporary changes in science and methods generally. The
use of scientific problem solving remains the structure for the nurs-
ing process but goes beyond a limited interpretation of knowledge
and method, honoring unknown subjective phenomena, theories, and
conceptual problems as well as scientific data.

doCumentation oF Caring
As this work evolves, there is a need not only to honor an evolving
model of science and problem solving but also to develop approaches
to documentation of caring. This issue has recently been addressed by
the Resurrection Health System in Chicago. This health care facility,
under the leadership of Dr. Linda Ryan (2005) and Susan Rosenberg
(2006), has taken steps to develop a new context for charting with
an extensive clinical documentation systems upgrade, leading to a
new diagnostic category accepted by the North American Nursing
Diagnosis Association (NANDA).
The healthcare facility described in the article is part of an eight-
hospital organization that adopted Watson’s Theory of Caring as part
of their nursing philosophy. According to Watson, this theory is an
attempt to find and deepen the language specific to nurse caring rela-
tions and its many meanings. Yet during the implementation of the
theory within the setting described, it was noted that there was no
mechanism in the current documentation system for clinical nursing
staff to document the patient experience using any language specific
to the theory. Nursing members recognized an opportunity to develop
a new context in charting during an extensive clinical documentation

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