Nursing Demarcation Paper

The purpose of this paper is to define demarcation and explain how demarcation cannot be reconciled with the concept of holism in nursing practice. The concept of demarcation was outlined by Reisch (1998) to identify the boundary between science and pseudoscience (as cited in Schick, 2000). First, he introduced the “ simple demarcation” criteria, which adapted the logical positivism view and its empirical methodology in recognizing the scientific knowledge. Then, he introduced the second concept, which is “ network demarcation” as the methodology to find the interconnections among the acceptable different field of sciences. If the theory lacks the evidential support or credibility, then it is not considered scientific at all according to the first principle of demarcation. However, adapting demarcation in nursing …show more content…
Holistic nursing care believes that people are infinite, sacred and spiritual beings (Thornton, 2008). It looks at human being as a whole and how human interrelated to their environment, spirit, emotions, body and minds. These principles of holism shape nursing practice and the way nurses approach patients to promote healing and provide care. The position that will be taken here is to discuss how demarcation dose not provide a realistic view for the concept of holism in nursing practice. To support the author’s position, discussing the conflict between demarcation principles and holistic nursing care is essential. Since nursing care focuses on patient care, holism provides an appropriate approach to aid nurses in delivering the optimal care for human being. Risjord (2010) said that nurses must take all factors that influence patient’s health into account to reflect the holistic nursing knowledge. He argued that in order to ease suffering, help patient