Teaching communication about human sexuality to nurses and other healthcare providers.

Nursing and healthcare professional faculty are challenged to prepare graduates who are comfortable and capable of discussing human sexuality issues and concerns with patients who are victims of family violence, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, rape, and abuse, as well as patients who have undergone cardiac surgery and other life-threatening events. The authors recommend using a holistic approach as the basis for teaching strategies.

Integrating nursing theory and ethics.

TOPIC: Integrating nursing theory and ethics PURPOSE: To delineate: (a) ethical dimensions of nursing, (b) a moral view of persons, and (c) caring as a central value for nurses SOURCE: Existential philosophy CONCLUSION: Special ethical theories are needed for nursing.

Nursing process: the science of nursing in the curriculum.

In conveying the nature of nursing science to our future scholars, faculty members must clearly define the role and function of the problem-solving process and its variations in nursing science as used at each level of the curricula. Although they have some common characteristics, the nursing process, clinical inquiry process, and research process also have distinct and unique characteristics. Assuming a common understanding of the undergraduate nursing process and the postgraduate research process, the purpose of this article is 1) to focus on defining a masters-level prototype of the baccalaureate-level nursing process and nursing care plan, 2) distinguish it from the research process, and 3) to share some experiences in using the prototype with graduate students.

Perspectives of faculty practice and clinical competence: a trilogy of paradox.

The authors present three different views of nursing faculty competence and mandated faculty practice. The first author supports faculty practice as a requirement for educators. The second author believes that too much is expected of nurse educators and asks, "What about life?" The third author, who has devoted more than 30 years to nursing education, attempted to go back to being a staff nurse and failed to "come up to speed." The authors offer the rationale for their positions and suggestions for our readers' consideration.

Advancing nursing in the academic community: adopt an administrator.

The role of faculty in nursing schools is unique. Faculty members belong to the community of scholars, as well as the community of practitioners. The authors describe a program to educate key university leaders about the role of nursing faculty. The program achieved its objectives in a timely, cost-effective manner, and could be easily replicated at other universities.

Research testing theory: a selective review of Orem's self-care theory, 1986-1991.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which theory testing may have increased in the 5 years since Silva's initial investigation. Using the criteria established by Silva, a review of five major research journals in nursing was used to investigate the degree to which Orem's self-care theory of nursing was being empirically tested. Hand and computer searches yielded 31 studies purporting to use Orem's theory as the basis for research. Of these studies, however, only four (13%) met the criteria for appropriately testing the theory. The findings indicate that little change has occurred in using research to test Orem's theory appropriately. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Anger: an alienating communication hazard for nurses.

In summary, the following information seems to be available to us. We know how alienation occurs generally; that nurses do report becoming alienated and behave as if they were alienated; and that alienation tends to be activated for nurses in the presence of three communicative variable--facts, feelings, and force, as described above. While further research is needed, the investigations that have already been carried out strongly suggest a need for planned intervention to help nurses deal with communications, particularly angry or critical ones, from supervisors and others in some way other than by withdrawing into alienation. Some preliminary attempts have been made in this direction, but describing these is not within the scope of this article. Nurses and their superordinate colleagues might well ponder interventions of their own, however; the chronic problems of turnover and shortage would appear too important to leave to the examination of individual researchers. After all, it is practicing nurses at all levels who both need to resolve these problems and have any chance of doing so.