Nurse Theorist Press Release
January 30, 1998
Contact Sr. Pat Moore, Editorial Assistant
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ENRS Knowledge Impact Conference II Hailed as Major Success
in Linking Nursing Knowledge to Practice Outcomes
Nurse scholars from across the United States and five other countries convened at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel on November 20-22, 1997 to participate in ENRS Knowledge Impact Conference II. This marked the second in a series of conferences presented by the Theory Special Interest Group of ENRS. The 140 participants, speakers and reactors drew a vision of nursing's impact on practice from a case study entitled, "A Death Pits Compassion Against the Law" which described the common clinical issue of compassion in end of life decisions as the basis of discussion.
"This conference went beyond learning from information, and actually moved the discipline of nursing a step forward," said Sr. Callista Roy, PhD, RN, FAAN, coordinator of the Knowledge Impact Conference 1997, which was hosted by the Boston College School of Nursing. "There was a strong sense of hope that there are more commonalities in perspectives than differences."
Other participants responded: "The overall experience of the conference was very exciting." "Excellent, powerful conference...the last two speakers took my breath away." "Really saw as a dynamic conference for this theoretical/knowledge perspective...beginning to link to practice with critical dialog." "I liked the structure and format very well." "Group work could be conducted at each table with an expert leader (speaker) to allow for audience input and participation in order to apply content to practice."
Keynote speaker Lorraine Walker, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor and assistant dean for graduate programs at the University of Texas School of Nursing in Austin, Texas, offered several platforms of discussion to guide participants through the conference's program with her vision of change in nursing and its contributions to knowledge in nursing practice.
Dr. Walker discussed the challenge of creating impact amidst the changes occurring within our health care delivery system, citing various examples such as the need to clarify practice theories. "As nursing science and nursing ethics have gained in clarity, the view of nursing practice theory may sharpen as well," she said.
Another example cited by Dr. Walker was to associate courageous or heroic qualities with the character of nursing, which goes beyond the more widely associated qualities of being kind, caring and empathetic.
Elizabeth Lenz, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor of nursing research and associate dean of research and doctoral studies at Columbia University School of Nursing in New York, analyzed the case study using a post-positivistic problem-solving approach. Due to the conflicting values surrounding end of life decisions, Dr. Lenz revealed that, "the case situation is viewed as a problem by some of the parties involved directly and indirectly, but not by others," thereby representing empirical clinical problem(s) external and internal to the discipline. Dr. Lenz acknowledged that "a variety of different conceptualizations may be encountered even within one discipline" as well as between disciplines.
Jacqueline Fortin, DNSc, RN, associate professor at the University of Rhode Island responded to Dr. Lenz' presentation with comments regarding the dilemma of problem-solving in nursing, particularly when problems arise "when a theory is in conflict with a particular view".
Opening statements from Patricia Winstead-Fry, PhD, RN, professor of nursing at the University of Vermont, touted "mischief" in contemporary nursing knowledge that asserts one approach to process. "Knowledge as process must be diverse, colorful and messy." She further stated that, "the tendency to want one approach to Nursing Science...contradicts the evolutionary nature of knowledge as process."
Reactor speaker Sarah Jo Brown, PhD, RN, research consultant and principal of practice-Research Integrations in Norwich, Vermont, challenged the reference to Harman's views of science, that "the acceptance of [wholeness science] has deep implications for how we define nursing science and for how nursing knowledge is developed." Dr. Brown explained that there are essential distinctions between private knowledge and public knowledge, citing that private knowledge is a contributor to the creation of public knowledge.
Janice Thompson, PhD, RN, associate professor of University of Southern Maine College of Nursing and director of its honors program, reviewed the case study through a post-structuralist feminist perspective, prefacing useful insights for nurses from this position, but not without risks. Dr. Thompson suggested that the discourse of bioethics "operates as only one kind of knowledge [which] may frequently conceal or cover-up a whole other set of subjugated knowledges."
"A poststructuralist feminist reading would also notice the elliptical reference to culture and ethnicity in this story and would ask about how race and ethnicity position nurses and patients within the industry," Dr. Thompson said.
Peggy Chinn, PhD, RN, FAAN, professor of nursing at the University of Connecticut, breathed life into the characters of the case study, illustrating a more complete picture of understanding, sympathizing and relating to the roles surrounding the situation in this case. These insights further illustrate the dominant discourse of knowledge in practice, as it overcomes individual knowledge, leading to political ambiguity not unfamiliar to nurses, Dr. Chinn said.
The closing address was given by Dorothy Jones, EdD, RN, C, FAAN, associate professor and chair of the adult health department at the Boston College School of Nursing, who summarized the similarities and differences in each of the highlighted perspectives, and projected the direction of future knowledge in the discipline.
Plans are in progress for Knowledge Impact Conference III, to be held at the Boston Park Plaza on October 22-24, 1998. The time-frame of conference sessions will be similar to the previous two conferences. However, the process will change to add work group sessions aimed at developing a position paper on Linking Nursing Knowledge to Practice Outcomes. One purpose for this position paper may be to use it as a stimulus paper for a larger international conference, tentatively planned for the year 2000 in Boston.
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