Niall McCrae's work, "Whither Nursing Models? The Value of Nursing Theory in the Context of Evidence-Based Practice and Multidisciplinary Health Care" discusses the role that nursing models, together with theory, play in the contemporary clinical setting. It argues that the authenticity of any profession revolves around its capacity for producing and applying theory. However, whereas nursing has enjoyed valued status within the society, it faces challenges in affirming itself as an occupation. Irrespective of the diverse efforts aimed at boosting its academic qualifications, the career lacks abstruse experience. Even while wide-ranging practicality might address the needs of patients appropriately, failure to devise a unique theoretical framework subjects nursing to outside control. As such, until nurses direct value to their input in healthcare together with the exceptional knowledge body, which guides their practice, they will continue pursuing the lesser roles to those that doctors undertake.
Discussion
One of my major reactions to the paper revolves around the various attempts by scholars during the past several years in trying to incorporate the social, psychological, and physical care aspects of nursing models and theories. These targeted guiding the practice and offering an avenue for training curricular as well as research, hence backing professional knowledge growth. The study has led me to realize the misuse and misunderstanding of nursing models during the 1970s and 1980s, which failed to close the gap between practice and theory (McKenna, Pajnkihar, & Murphy, 2014). Whereas proof of fruitful application lingers in the United States, where private institutions and the federal government support nursing science with significant financing, the United Kingdom saw nursing models disappearing from professional discourse (McCrae, 2011). In this sense, I feel that ensuring that nursing theories and models remain relevant in professional practice requires supporting them through financing and research to ensure they make a positive contribution to the nursing field. Failure to help them would render them ineffective in fostering effective delivery of patient care.
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Weaknesses of Theories
The accuracy and relevance of McCrae's support for the nursing theory and models become evident based on the reliance of the author on health and social care databases to inform the arguments raised. The author also challenges nursing theory to reveal the various weaknesses that prevail, hence creating an avenue for devising means of addressing the flaws to ensure that nursing theory and models work to support the practice efficiently. McCrae also supports the need for a multidisciplinary services context and the evidence-based practice doctrine in the nursing arena. In this manner, it becomes possible to inform a unique theoretical standpoint that consists of nursing science an art, which is becoming increasingly relevant in the modern healthcare environment (Straus, Tetroe, & Graham, 2011). As such, I support the idea that a theoretical framework needs to reflect the pragmatic and extensive nursing practice. Thus, nurse practitioners and educators need to adopt both theory-based practices together with evidence-based practice to inform their decisions surrounding the nursing practice in healthcare.
Conclusion
From the article, I have realized that empirical evidence in the nursing environment has dominated the broad conceptual models and theories. The different efforts aimed at instituting a theoretical viewpoint in the nursing field have had minimal successes. However, that does not mean that the philosophical and structural challenges are insurmountable. Therefore, it would be crucial to ensure that the distinct stakeholders in the nursing profession should emphasize on promoting theory in the curricula to reinforce nursing knowledge (McCrae, 2011). Doing so would assist practitioners to highlight, institute, and assess the unique role they play in the healthcare environment. Overall, I would recommend the work to individuals involved in the nursing profession, including practitioners, academicians, researchers, and nursing students, to foster renewed thinking on a theoretical basis for nursing.
References
McCrae, N. (2011). Whither nursing models? The value of nursing theory in the context. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 68 (1), 222-229.
McKenna, H., Pajnkihar, M., & Murphy, F. (2014). Fundamentals of nursing models, theories and practice. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Straus, S., Tetroe, J., & Graham, I. D. (2011). Knowledge translation in health care: Moving from evidence to practice. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
