A New Look at Nursing of Martha Rogers - Assignment Example

Order 285649 Topic: Martha Rogers Introduction: That which is not practical can not be scientific or philosophical either. Every philosophical truth must stand the test of practicability. What is the difference between an individual who is an introvert, rarely communicates with people and an individual who mixes freely with the staff and the associates and yet keeps the essential dignity of the relations! Remains close but keeps the desired distance! Such is the contribution of Martha Rogers to the science of Nursing. Her creation of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB) placed nursing at the high pedestal and is considered as one of the profound scientific disciplines and yet it stands to benefit for the treatment of the common patient. She provides a unique framework for nursing study and research. I Her creation of the Science of Unitary Human Beings (SUHB) theory allowed nursing to be considered one of the scientific disciplines. She provides a framework for nursing study and research which has improved nursing education, practice and research in the United States and brought a new respectability to the profession and demands the attention of the medical profession all over the world. “Martha Elizabeth Rogers was born on May 12, 1914; sharing a birthday with Florence Nightingale.” (Society….) There seems to be an element of poetic justice about this. Florence Nightingale is another individual who immortalized the nursing profession, on the sheer strength of service. Martha Roger’s contribution in this field is on a different footing, in keeping with the demands of humanity impacted by industrialization and the ill-effects of materialistic civilization. It was not only the academic degrees that she took in Nursing that made her great. To her, Nursing was the way of life. The practical approach, the individuals for whose benefit this science came into being and flourished, mattered much to her. The college of self-education in nursing was more important to her than the academic pursuits. Rogers took the decision to work for many years as a public health nurse before pursuing a graduate degree. That grassroots level experience proved to be the foundation for the magnificent superstructure that she would build in the years to come, for the cause of nursing education. Several aspects of nursing were thoroughly recast. She had a fresh look at them. A novel framework for practice, education and research was drafted which was a far cry from the traditional medical model approach. Many traditional ideas about nursing are challenged and this model has been hailed as reductionistic, mechanistic and analytic. Human mind is a double-edged sword. It is a rare gift of Nature (God) with immense, immeasurable power of unlimited supreme energy, which manifests through it, when it is made to shine, by providing proper conditions for its growth. Generally, in the humdrum of our daily activities of life, we are unable to realize how potent our mind is, and how useful it can prove. The journey of the human being from the age of horse-driven carts to the age of steam engines and, finally, to the age of computerization and space travel during the last hundred years bears testimony to the dexterity and efficacy of the human mind. An individual needs to work with the right frame of mind, enabling one to lead a more creative and fulfilling life. One needs to develop the discriminative power by harmonizing the latent power of the mind. Physical, mental and intellectual faculties must function in unison to live a perfect life, whatever is one’s profession. One needs to unveil the entire repository of mental affluence to be used for the welfare of the humanity. Martha Roger must have designed her conceptual framework, not only as the nurse with the practical knowledge of her profession, but from the higher plane of consciousness, as highlighted in the above paragraph, where total well-being of humanity assumes great importance. Her efforts are not ordinary but extraordinary. “Five basic assumptions underlay Rogers conceptual framework: wholeness, openness, unidirectional, pattern and organization, and sentience and thought. First, the human being is considered a unified whole which is more than the sum of its parts. Second, the person and the environment are continuously exchanging matter and energy with each other. Third, the life process exists along an irreversible space time continuum. Fourth, pattern and organization are used to identify individuals and mirror their wholeness. Fifth, human beings are the only organisms able to think abstractly, have language, sensation and emotion.” (Martha E. Rogers….) Martha’s conceptual framework can be analyzed using four topics, people, the environment, health and nursing. For better appreciation of her SUHB theory it is necessary for us to know some backgrounder information about the concept of how human energy and environmental energy are integrated and how one affects the other. “Mind, stimulating various biochemical reactions, incites various physiological diseases and biological disorders.”(Anonymous) From the biological point of view, the human body is a gigantic, dense network of cells and veins interconnected with each other. On an average, human body consists of 50 trillion cells and 72000 veins. The body owes its liveliness and health to biochemical reactions taking place in each cell. Any disruption in these reactions leads to the disordering of the respective cells. Human body possesses the ability of renewing itself. All our body organs are in a state of constant flux, a flowing change. “Whatever is flexible and flowing will tend to grow; whatever is rigid and blocked will wither and die.”(Tao Te Ching, Ancient China) “Martha Rogers theory has three principles of homeodynarnic. First, Integrality a human energy and environmental energy are integrated, one affects the other. Second, Helicy is all energy patterns are continuous and unpredictable providing increasing diversity. Lastly, Resonance is a continuous change in energy fields from lower to higher frequency patterning which is best represented by our wake-sleep cycles.”(Martha E. Rogers….) In other words, if all cellular reactions are optimum and perfect one can lead disease-free life. So, the final objective of any nursing framework must lead to the fulfillment of a person’s potential to recoup one’s original health. When Rogers differentiates from person to person as for the course of nursing facilities and treatment, she is aware that the two entities are different on account of various factors that are special to the particular individual. It also depends upon the mood of the individual. For example, it has been tested that the chemical composition of the tears of joy oozing out of our eyes is different from that of the tears of sorrow. Thus, every emotion or feeling has the tendency of altering or modifying one’s biochemical profile. In fine, human body is the physical outcome of all the thoughts and emotions one has been rearing in the mental plane—belief creates biology! If this concept is understood properly, it is easy to understand the application of SUHB of Martha. Unless one has the good understanding of the philosophical concepts and practices them to some extent, one will find it difficult to appreciate its meaning and the process of application of SUHB. Upon introduction, it was termed radical, and people failed to appreciate it. Martha is much ahead of her time. But now its influence can be felt in all aspects of nursing, and it has been accepted as the alternative to traditional forms of nursing. This is the highly influential theory of nursing in the United States now. II Rogerian Nursing Theory: “Nursing is both a science and art. The uniqueness of nursing, like that of any other science, lies in the phenomenon central to its focus.” (Martha….) Its concern is with the people and the world they live in. The working ethos of nurses is to promote health and well-being of peoples in their different levels of progression. No two patients or human beings are alike, and the pattern of treatment and care varies accordingly. Evolution of abstract system: “The development of the abstract system was strongly influenced by an early grounding in arts and background of science and her keen interest in space.” (Martha…) Human beings are confronted with multiple sources of knowledge. The important issues are people and environment. Universe is an open system, constantly changing. Overview of Rogerian model: “Rogers’s model provides the way of viewing the unitary human being.” (Martha….)Human beings are an integral part of the universe. The unitary human being and the environment are alternative beats of the same heart. Concepts of Rogerian model: “Energy field-This is the fundamental unit of both the living and nonliving.” (Martha….) It varies continuously in intensity, density and extent. The human field and the environmental field continuously interact with each other and exchange their energies. The energy flows freely between them. Unitary Human Being (person) “A unitary human being is an "irreducible, indivisible, pan dimensional (four-dimensional) energy field identified by pattern and manifesting characteristics that are specific to the whole and which cannot be predicted from knowledge of the parts" and "a unified whole having its own distinctive characteristics which cannot be perceived by looking at , describing, or summarizing the parts" (Martha….) Health “Rogers defined health as an expression of the life process; they are the "characteristics and behavior emerging out of the mutual, simultaneous interaction of the human and environmental fields “Health and illness are the part of the same continuum. The multiple events taking place along lifes axis denote the extent to which man is achieving his maximum health potential and very in their expressions from greatest health to those conditions which are incompatible with the maintaining life process”(Martha….) “Rogers conceptual system provides a body of knowledge in nursing that will have relevance for all workers concerned with people, but with special relevance for nurses; because it matters to human beings; consequently to nurses. In the evolution it is properly subjected to reformulation and change as the knowledge grows, the conceptual data will be clearer and it will take new dimensions. The utilization of Rogerian model is used as a guide for theory development, research, nursing education, and in the direct patient care practice.” (Martha….) The goal of nursing, according to any model, is to maintain and promote health, prevent illness, care and rehabilitation of the patient and disabled through humanistic science of nursing. There are no two opinions on this issue. The only question is how you achieve, what you achieve, and SUHB precisely explains it. Nursing incorporates the disciplines of man as an adaptive organism. Man has great capabilities to adapt himself in different conditions of the environment. He possesses a strong coping mechanism in a fast changing environment. He is constantly being impacted by the external and internal stimuli. For example, a bout of depression is enough to disrupt the immune system while the soothing feelings of love and affection are potent enough to boost it up. Through this model, Rogers avers that an individual is the energy field coexisting within the universe, the logic of this statement is, the combination and permutation of varied factors like pollutants, imbalanced diet, and highly intensified aspirations and desires render the human mind restless, thereby making the body perpetually ill. When it is agreed by all concerned that Psychology is a strong allied force in the nursing profession, it goes without saying that efforts must be made to churn out the positive tendencies, enabling one to extract the best out of one’s life as they train and develop one’s mind, keeping it disease-free and stress-free. Through this process, one leads a healthier and more productive life while keeping the deadly diseases at bay. III There are no weaknesses in the theory; any theory that is introduced for the first time and when it challenges the existing practices vehemently and tries to initiate rock-bottom changes, is likely to face opposition. With human mind paying a pivotal role in the cosmic merry-go-round, mind-cure becomes the basic but also essential and immediate necessity for the total relief, ranging from individual level relief to the global relief. Marta Rogers touches the borders of spirituality, though she is unable to transcend the borders of the mind, while formulating her theory. But she understands the limitations of the human mind very well and that in itself is the first step in the ladder of spirituality. Psychotherapy, an important and well-accepted branch of nursing therapy aims to heal man’s sufferings by relieving distress emerging from emotional disturbances and behavioral disorders originating from mal-adaptive behavior patterns. These things happen when man goes against the benevolent, helping and healing powers of Nature. Instead of co-operating with it, man confronts it and ultimately pays the price. The procedures detailed in SUHB aim in infusing strength and courage in the patient to cope up with life situations. It aims a confidence-building by uprooting negative self assumptions and alleviating interpersonal problems. Modern psychotherapy is not just limited to disease cure, but, in addition, it focuses on the growth of an individual. The techniques involved basically revolve around patient’s total personality development by altering the behavioral patterns that block individual’s development. Directly or indirectly, all these emotional malfunctioning, which are the cause of all prevailing crisis, are the consequence of a defective integration. One fails in integrating the different personality layers resulting in a distorted make-up, leading to strife, frictions and disease. =============== Works Cited: Martha Rogers science of unitary human beings. Publications of Martha Rogers: Theoretical basis of nursing (Rogers 1970) Retrieved on March 31, 2009 Society of Rogerian Scholars - Biography of Martha Rogers. Retrieved on March 31, 2009 Martha E. Rogers- the creation of the SUHB Martha Rogers SUHB theory offers a new look at nursing…. www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/martha-e-rogers - 27k Retrieved on March 31, 2009 Read More