Interdisciplinary nursing faculty and the advancement of nursing knowledge

“An eye toward the future: Pressing questions for our discipline in today's academic research climate” by in the January/February issue of Nursing Outlook is an important contribution to the literature and revisits longstanding questions nurse scholars have raised about the generation of nursing knowledge for more than 40 years. was arguably one of the first nursing scholars to examine the utility of non-nursing theories and conceptual models in the advancement of nursing science. He reasoned that if theory is the means by which discipline-specific knowledge is produced, nursing science development must be seated in nursing frames of reference. When nurses or other interdisciplinary scholars working in schools of nursing ask scientific questions rooted in non-nursing frameworks, though the results of their work might improve health outcomes or service delivery, the science they are building is debatably not nursing but rather the discipline from which the framework was derived. However, it is possible to move borrowed models and theories into nursing by intentionally seating them within a nursing frame of reference. raised important questions about the intentional steps that schools of nursing are taking to ensure both the advancement of nursing knowledge and the transmission of this knowledge to our students. Unfortunately, by bringing questions about nursing knowledge development down to the level of the individual, rather than maintaining it at the level of the system, what should have simply generated scholarly dialogue has been perceived by many as divisive and a personal attack on the legitimacy, scholarship, and ultimately the value of interdisciplinary faculty members who are not registered nurses. These concerns, however, do not change the importance of the key questions raised in the article, particularly, “how best can we leverage the expertise of our [non-nursing faculty] to advance our discipline” (p.63).

A significant challenge in the work of knowledge development in nursing is the view by many that nursing is an applied science rather than a basic science. As noted, viewing nursing as an applied science rather than a basic science with its own unique body of knowledge maintains a focus on what nurses do rather than what they know, which inevitably slows down the generation of new nursing knowledge. This applied science perspective has led to a seemingly increased disciplinary focus on patient and health system outcomes and stopping there. The extra steps of articulating the unique nursing knowledge that has been developed through this work is often missing. As stewards of the discipline, nursing faculty, both nurses and other interdisciplinary professionals, have a responsibility to teach, generate, and demonstrate through example, the development and application of nursing knowledge.

I believe that most faculty scholars in schools of nursing have the capacity to do this but often choose not to for a variety of reasons. An important point that Algase et al argued was that the current structure of schools of nursing and the ways in which scientists are most frequently funded do not promote environments in which nursing science is elevated; in fact it could be argued that exactly the opposite is happening.

In our modern world, people want measurable, practical results as fast as possible. There is less value around scholarly work dedicated exclusively to the development of nursing knowledge. That means that our call to action as doctorally prepared nurses is to center nursing science. We must be ready and willing to take the extra steps of discussing and writing about how the work that we are doing builds upon current nursing theories or creates new frameworks in our thinking about the relationships between persons/families/communities, the environment, and health. In addition, these concepts have to become much more embedded into the language we use to describe practice so that the theories that support our practice are clearer. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer persons both inside and outside of nursing see the value of nursing theories and frameworks. In fact, some schools have even removed theory courses from their undergraduate education curriculum, and many others focus on a wide variety of theories that do not necessarily center nursing. If leaders in schools of nursing don't see the value of nursing theory and conceptual models to our discipline, how can we expect anyone else to?