Deniece A. Jukiewicz
Self-Evaluation of Current Understanding of Epistemology and State of Knowledge Development in Nursing At the completion of the Nursing Epistemology course, I have learned that the word epistemology is much more complicated than simply being defined as “knowing how” and “knowing that” as I first believed during the beginning of this course. Schultz and Meleis (1988) suggest that knowing is a discovery process humans perform through observation, perception, and experience as they live allowing them to interpret and describe the views, opinions, and experiences they develop. Philosophy is a way of …show more content…
However, after learning Carper’s four fundamental patterns of knowing: empirical, personal, aesthetic, and ethical knowledge, now I understand that philosophies of various nursing theories are developed from both ontological and epistemological views. Epistemology as a construct is only one part of a nursing theory. It is a frame or scaffolding by which subjective and objective information of our reality may be predicted, tested, and verified using the interpreted information in the realm of nursing science methods. Epistemology involves knowledge use and development through logic, theory, or empiric evidence related to the discipline of nursing. It is important to use epistemological knowing and apply the principles of knowing to nursing at every level of practice to identify significant questions, understand methodologies to answer the questions, and learn how to handle unanswerable questions to provide the most efficacious and safe care to patients and groups of …show more content…
It is evident in published reports and is useful to change policies, invoke new practices and procedures, and substantiate change. An example of the use of empirical knowledge is the use of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) bundle changes to reduce the potential for urinary tract infections. Advanced practice nurses reviewed the empirical data related to urinary tract infections associated with prolonged catheter use and broke the protocol of leaving the catheter into removing it on the first post-operative day based on the empirical
Self-Evaluation of Current Understanding of Epistemology and State of Knowledge Development in Nursing At the completion of the Nursing Epistemology course, I have learned that the word epistemology is much more complicated than simply being defined as “knowing how” and “knowing that” as I first believed during the beginning of this course. Schultz and Meleis (1988) suggest that knowing is a discovery process humans perform through observation, perception, and experience as they live allowing them to interpret and describe the views, opinions, and experiences they develop. Philosophy is a way of …show more content…
However, after learning Carper’s four fundamental patterns of knowing: empirical, personal, aesthetic, and ethical knowledge, now I understand that philosophies of various nursing theories are developed from both ontological and epistemological views. Epistemology as a construct is only one part of a nursing theory. It is a frame or scaffolding by which subjective and objective information of our reality may be predicted, tested, and verified using the interpreted information in the realm of nursing science methods. Epistemology involves knowledge use and development through logic, theory, or empiric evidence related to the discipline of nursing. It is important to use epistemological knowing and apply the principles of knowing to nursing at every level of practice to identify significant questions, understand methodologies to answer the questions, and learn how to handle unanswerable questions to provide the most efficacious and safe care to patients and groups of …show more content…
It is evident in published reports and is useful to change policies, invoke new practices and procedures, and substantiate change. An example of the use of empirical knowledge is the use of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) bundle changes to reduce the potential for urinary tract infections. Advanced practice nurses reviewed the empirical data related to urinary tract infections associated with prolonged catheter use and broke the protocol of leaving the catheter into removing it on the first post-operative day based on the empirical