humanism in nursing essay

A humanism for nursing?

Affiliation.

1 Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
PMID: 30656789
DOI: 10.1111/nin.12281

Humanism has appeared intermittently in the nursing literature as a concept that can be used in understanding nursing. I return to the concept in response to noticing the term appearing in the context of health humanities, where it is loosely associated both with humanities and being humane. I review the usage and critiques of humanism in both nursing and medical literature and then re-evaluate what the idea of humanism might hold for nursing, trying to avoid the traps of an over-determination of the human subject, or dichotomizing nursing as art or science, technology or caring. I draw on writings on humanism primarily from Emmanuel Levinas and Edward Said to emphasize strands in humanism of obligation towards others and of critical discernment within history and culture directed towards democratic practices. I discuss in passing the strong association in the UK particularly between humanism and scientism as a note of caution about the plurality of the term humanism. I conclude that humanism is a tradition that does offer productive ways of thinking about nursing with the proviso that it ought to be treated carefully as a problematic tradition and not as a new essence for nursing.

Keywords: humanism; liberal arts; nursing; philosophy.

Philosophy, Nursing*

Dr. Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest

Eligibility, Selection Criteria, and Process
Past Winners
Essay Reviewers

The annual Dr. Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest asks medical and nursing students to engage in a reflective writing exercise that illustrates an experience where they or a healthcare team member (doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, pharmacists, patients and families, etc.) worked to ensure that humanism was at the core of care. Submissions that touch upon students’ personal experiences of humanistic care or stories of family and friends are also accepted.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Dr. Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest! Read the full announcement here.

First-, second-, and third-place essays for both nursing and medical students are chosen by a panel including healthcare professionals, writers/journalists, and educators.

Winners receive monetary awards of $1000, $500 and $250, respectively, and their essays are published in Academic Medicine and The Journal of Professional Nursing in the fall.

For details, visit Eligibility, Selection Criteria, and Process.

Contact our Staff:

Michelle Sloane, MPA mail_outline

Who was Dr. Hope Babette Tang?

The essay contest is named in memory of Hope Babette Tang, MD, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and the Pediatric Medical Director of the hospital’s HIV clinic until her death in 1998 at age 36. Dr. Tang’s patients were often facing numerous obstacles on top of their devastating medical challenges, which made healing even more difficult. Her mantra in caring for her patients was “Whatever it takes.” Her approach meant she saw the person in front of her, not just their medical situation. Many of her acts of caring only came to be known after her death. She treated the whole patient, a hallmark of humanistic care.

2024 Medical Student Winners

First Place | “A Drop of a Person” Caterina Florissi Harvard Medical School

Second Place | “Apartment 5 on Dolphin Drive” Noor Ahmed Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine at Seton Hill University

Third Place | “A Place for Grief” Danielle Collins Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

2024 Nursing Student Winners

First Place | “Baby J’s Song” Hailey Sommerfeld University pf Utah College of Nursing

Second Place | “The Cat” Megan McDowell Brenau University

Third Place | “A Quiet Place” Erin Bowdish The Valley Foundation School of Nursing at San Jose State University

Read the full announcement of the 2024 winners.

2024 Dr. Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest Prompt

Students were asked to use the following quote to reflect on an experience in any healthcare setting where they or another healthcare team member worked to put the person at the center of care.

“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.” — William Osler

Hear past essay winners read and share about their essay through the Gold Connection Podcast

For more information about the Gold Foundation programs or their status, please contact Director of Program Initiatives Michelle Sloane at [email protected] .

Understanding Humanism in Nursing

We can trace the ideas of Humanism to the ancient Greeks by noting the importance that they placed on understanding human inter-relationships especially within the context of social order. Socrates (470-399 BCE), Plato (384-345 BCE), and Aristotle (384-322 BCE) believed that we can glean an understanding of human nature by studying what humans do and the way they inter-act, especially inter-actions that are directed to doing good or evil towards others. The Greeks elaborated on the concepts of free choice and responsibility for one’s actions relative to those “free” choices. Free choice and responsibility are both central to a discussion of Humanism.

More recently Corliss Lamont, a noted scholar of humanism for over 50 years advanced the simple proposition that the chief end of human life is to work for the happiness of humans within the confines of the natural world. The “philosophy of enjoying, developing, and making available to everyone the abundant material, cultural, and spiritual goods of this natural world is profound in its implications, yet easy to understand and congenial to common sense”. The American Humanist Association describes humanism “as a progressive life stance, free of supernaturalism, which affirms our ability and responsibility to lead meaningful, ethical lives that add to the greater good of humanity”.

The phrase “free of supernaturalism” has at times been misinterpreted to mean that proponents of Humanism are anti-religious or anti-spiritual. For the reader who wishes to take up this controversial issue of religiosity or spirituality in Humanism, which is beyond the scope of this article, you are referred to two books of the Old Testament, which elucidate Humanist ideals. These are Ecclesiastes, focusing on a theme of enjoying life while one is able, even though all human happiness and achievement are transient, and The Song of Solomon, an allegorical roadmap for finding and giving happiness through human to human relationships in the world.

Although humanism is not unique to nursing, it is a philosophy that is strongly held as a value of the profession. The human-centered theory of life is easily recognized in the views of the earliest nursing professionals who described nursing as personalized, humanistic care, or a way of caring for the patient as a unique person.

Florence Nightingale claimed that the essence of nursing rested on the nurse’s capacity to provide humane, sensitive care to the sick, which she believed would allow healing. This approach is depicted through the well-known image of the lady with the lamp tending to soldiers in the middle of the night.

In 1948, Hildegard Peplau introduced her Theory of Interpersonal Relations, which focused on the human connection between nurse and patient. She explained, “It seems to me that interpersonal relation is the core of nursing. Basically, nursing practice always involves a relationship between at least two real people, a nurse and a patient”.

Commonly referred to as the “American Florence Nightingale,” and deeply concerned with humanistic values in nursing, Virginia Henderson characterized her view of modern nursing as embracing “self understanding and a universal sympathy for an understanding of diverse human beings”. Henderson noted that the practice of nursing inherently contained the human element, since one human being, whose intentional actions were directed in some manner toward involvement with other humans, performed nursing.

Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad were the first to combine the concepts of Humanism with the philosophical and methodological framework of Existentialism and Phenomenology as a way of examining experiences of the nurse-patient relationship. They portrayed the nurse as being in participating with the patient and brought attention to the inter-subjective experiences of the nurse. The central idea of humanistic nursing, according to Paterson and Zderad, is that of a lived dialogue, which offers a frame of orientation that places the center of the nurse’s universe at the nurse-patient, that is, human-to-human, intersubjective transaction.

Another significant nursing theorist who emphasizes humanism in nursing is Jean Watson, who developed the Human Caring Theory. Watson’s theory highlights the importance of a compassionate, holistic approach to patient care, focusing on the nurse-patient relationship and empathy, love, and caring in promoting healing. To learn more about Jean Watson’s Human Caring Theory and its impact and application in nursing, visit this resource. Watson’s theory can inspire nurses to embrace humanistic values and maintain a patient-centered focus even amidst the challenges of modern healthcare.

Nursing takes place within an economic, social, and technological context that may influence the way nurses practice and the ways they interact with patients. Certain aspects of the health care milieu are not congruent with a humanistic agenda in nursing. Some of these infelicities are:

Managed care as an intermediary between nurse and patient.
High technology in the form of computers, diagnostic equipment and pharmaceutical cures.
Robots as analogs to nurses which are given names! Penelope the scrub nurse!!!

After all is said and done the impact of economic, social or technological issues does not entail a change or modulation in the humanistic values held dear by nurses. However, nurses and patients are not closed off from the world. Despite today’s myopic vision for the way health care should be delivered there is no evidence that nurses’ views of themselves and society’s view of nurses have changed.

In today’s health care environment the imperative of the humanistic relationship (each person recognizing the other as a subjective human being like themselves) is sometimes overlooked in deference to technology, like the computer monitor that registers information about a patient’s vital signs but cannot reflect information that is vital and relevant to the patient as a person. The challenge is to integrate technology into the humanistic approach to patient care rather than technology dominating or replacing patient-centered care.

📎 References

1. Barnard A. (1997). A critical review of the belief that technology is a neutral object and nurses are its master. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26, pp. 126-131. 2. Benner, P. and Wrubel, J. (1989). The primacy of caring. New York: Addison Wesley. 3. Doyle, R. (1999). By the numbers: Health care costs. Scientific American, 4, 280. 4. Bostock, D.(2000). Aristotle’s Ethics. New York : Oxford University Press. 5. Green-Hernandez C.(1992). Being there and caring: a philosophical analysis and theoretical model of professional nurse caring in rural environments In: Rural health nursing: stories of creativity, commitment, and connectedness. (Winstead-Fry P et al) National League for Nursing Publications Publisher: 1992 #21-2408 (pp 31-53) (40 ref). 6. Heidegger, M. (1927/1962). Being and time. Translator, Joan Staumbaugh. New York: Harper Rowe. 7. Hospital Accreditation Standards of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of HealthCare Organizations (2002). Sec. RI.1, Sec. RI.1.1. Public Law 336. 8. Heller, B. R., Oros, M. T., & Durney-Crowley, J. (2000). The future of nursing education: 10 trends to watch. Nursing and Health Care Perspectives, 21(1),9-13. 9. Henderson, V. (1964). The nature of nursing. American Journal of Nursing, 64(8): 62-67. 10. Irwin, T.(1995). Plato’s Ethics. New York : Oxford University Press. 11. Katz-Rothman, B. (1987). The tentative pregnancy: Prenatal diagnosis and the future of motherhood. New York: Penguin. 12. Kleiman, S. (2002). The Lived-experiences of Nurse Practitioner’s Interacting with their Patients. (Doctoral dissertation, Adelphi University, 2002). University Microfilms International UMI Number 3051569. 13. Lamont, C. (1997). The philosophy of humanism, 8th Ed. Amherst, NY: Humanist Press 14. Leininger, M. (2001). A mini journey into transcultural nursing with its founder. Nebraska Nurse, 34, 2, p. 16-7. 15. Nightingale, Florence (1946). Notes on nursing: What it is and what it is not. Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott. 16. Paterson, J. G., & Zderad, L. T. (1976) Humanistic nursing. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 17. Peplau, H. E. (1965). The heart of nursing: Interpersonal relations. Canadian Nurse, 61, pp. 273-275. 18. VlastosG. , Ed.(1971). The Philosophy of Socrates . San Angelo, Tx: Anchor. 19. Vlastos, G., Ed.(1971). Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays. Volume I: Metaphysics and Epistemology. Volume II: Ethics. San Angelo, Tx: Anchor. 20. Watson, J. (1988). Nursing: Human Science and Human Care. New York: National League for Nursing.

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Honoring Our Heritage – Building Our Future

Humanistic nursing.

Contributor: Jacqueline Fawcett Updated March 31, 2020

Authors – Josephine Paterson, RN, DNSc and Loretta Zderad, RN, PhD

Year first published – 1976, major concepts.

Patient Call Nurse Response Dialogue

Nursology Theory

Practice Methodology

The process of practicing humanistic nursing theory involves “offers nurses a way to illuminate the values and meanings central to their lived experiences so that they may share them with other nurses and integrate them into their nursing practice … [which] helps nurses to realize their self-actualizing potential” (Kleiman, 2010, p. 338). Practice is a phenomenological process of reflection focusing on “synthesis and wholeness rather than reduction and logical analysis” (Kleiman, 2010, p. 339).

More specifically, humanistic nursing practice asserts that clinical practice is predicated on the existential experiences of the nurse that are deliberately and consciously constructed” and focuses on change, as well as being and becoming (Wolf & Bailey, 2013, p. 62),

Brief Description

Wolf and Bailey (2013) provided this definition of humanism and humanistic: “Humans are valued as unique individuals; human beings have a responsibility toward each other. Acknowledgement of the individual with respect toward personal experience person-centered perspective that emphasized growth and respect for persons, a feature that resonates between patient and caregivers” (p. 64).

Humanistic nursing theory encompasses a call from a person or persons (families, communities, humanity) for help with a health-related need, and a response to that call when recognized by a nurse or groups or communities of nurses. Through dialogue, nurse(s) and person(s) work toward resolving a health-related need (Kleiman, 2010). More specifically, nursing “is the ability to struggle with another through ‘peak experiences related to health and suffering in which the participants are and become in accordance with their human potential’” (Paterson and Zderad as cited in Kleiman, 2010, p. 339). Nursing is a nurturing activity for persons in need toward well-being (Kleiman, 2010).

Primary Sources

Kleiman, S. (2010). Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad’s humanistic nursing theory. In M. E. Parker & M. C. Smith (Eds.), Nursing theories and nursing practice (3rd ed., pp. 337-350). Philadelphia: F. A. Davis.

Paterson, J. G., & Zderad, L. T. (1976). Humanistic nursing. New York, NY: Wiley.

Wolf, Z. R., & Bailey, D. N.. (2013). Paterson and Zderad’s humanistic nursing theory: Concepts and applications. International Journal for Human Caring, 17(4), 60–69.

Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad

Dr. Josephine Paterson is originally from the east coast and Dr. Loretta Zderad is from the mid-west. They both were graduates of diploma schools and

Josephine Paterson (left), Loretta Zderad (right)

subsequently earned their bachelor’s degree in Nursing Education. Dr. Paterson did her graduate work at Johns Hopkins and Dr. Zderad did hers at Catholic University. In the mid-fifties they were both employed at The Catholic University and were assigned the task of working together to create a new program that would encompass the community health component and the psychiatric component of the graduate program. Subsequently they developed a collaboration and dialogue and friendship that have lasted for almost 40 years. Josephine Paterson and Loretta Zderad retired in 1985 and moved South where they are currently enjoying life. Although they are no longer active, they are pleased at the on going interest in their theory. (from http://libguides.twu.edu/c.php?g=270174&p=1803689 )