Nursing: Art vs Science

Something that is a combination of art and science is sometimes called a craft. Nursing fits this idea, but is hardly unique. From nursing to medicine to photography to counterintelligence, there are many fields and disciplines that are both an art and a science.Some might argue that different nursing specialties have more art or more science. I definitely see some specialties like their Jean Watson bell-ringing while others have no use for such things.

My managers have had a similar discussion with me. I guess they'd say that I'm good at the science...need to work on the art. Thanks for the article. That's good deductive thinking, by the way - those examples of figuring out the link between a Pt's life and their symptoms. I'm not sure of the correct way to say this without offending anyone, but it sounds as though you're thinking like an MD (I mean that as a compliment!)

Nursing is neither an art nor a science. It's just a job.

lol...

This has been a recurring theme for me lately. I just went to a STEM symposium where by happenstance the opening speaker, the closing speaker, and every one of my breakout sessions revolved around the marriage of art and science. Traditional thinking has art as interpretation, and science as facts, but the truth is that science is an act of art interpreting reality, and art is an interpretation of science. Dance is physics for example. I am glad to see your article putting it into a nursing perspective.

Jade,You're exactly the kind of nurse I'd want taking care of me or my loved ones.

mixture of both...

I understand the science, but my favorite aspect is the art and that's what I do best.

I was reaidng an old thread and found this lengthy comment quite relevant...Quote from nursemikeOK, so in another life, I was a physics major, so I have to quibble, but not only for the sake of quibbling. In the seventeenth century, before there was a theory of gravity, Galileo demonstrated that objects do not fall to the ground with a speed proportional to their mass. A bowling ball and a baseball fall at the same rate. So does a feather, in the absence of air resistance. That's picky, I know, but it does tend to reinforce the argument that people often dismiss theories without full understanding them. (I don't fully understand Watson, either, but I am impressed at how much her theory of caring, stripped of jargon, is good, common sense.)So, I've had an interest in science as long as I can remember, and I did, briefly, major in physics, until it proved incompatible with my minors in girls and beer. At around that time, I was forced to take some psych courses, and in those days behaviorism was all the rage. I HATED behaviorism, which I felt was adequate for training mice to run mazes, but had prescious little to do with people. I've never disputed that operant conditioning can work, but the mere title of Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity damns the whole movement. To me--and I'm right about this--there is nothing beyond freedom and dignity. Without them, my cats' lives wouldn't be worth living, and they understand that, even if Skinner couldn't.Still, behaviorism was the rage, and I know why. Psychologists had an inferiority complex. Physical sciences dealt in objective, quantifiable data and repeatable experiments. Psych dealt in feelings and wanting to have sex with your mother and other unscientific stuff. So, behaviorism to the rescue: a theory of psychology that is repeatable and quantifiable, and if perhaps not entirely objective, at least dispassionate. Hurray!!!Except, of course, that psych was still 50 years behind the times, because the physics of the 20th century has taught us that that which is quantifiable, repeatable, and objective is merely an approximation of reality, workable for such everyday tasks as putting a man on the moon, but inadequate to fully explain how he got there. Not long after mathematicians proved that a logical statement can be both true and false, physicists found particles that behaved in just that manner. To over-simplify quantum electrodynamics, all of reality is invisible electromagnetic fields. And while theories have supplanted QED, they haven't made reality more concrete. The distinctions between actual concrete and a vaccuum just get more and more vague.So, here we are in nursing, some arguing evidence-based practice and you have to treat what you can measure, when the most fundamental of sciences tells us what can be seen and measured is just the tip of the iceberg, and others saying, no, no, no, you have to treat the soul as well as the body (and often trying to show measurable, objective data to support their position.)I tend to get fidgety when people start talking about the profession of nursing. I was a carpenter for most of my working life, and I never saw anything wrong with a good, honest trade. But carpentry was not just a trade, it was (and still can be) a craft, because wood isn't entirely dead. It isn't steel, it isn't plastic, it moves, it breathes, it retains an element of the chaos that the tree had when it was a living being. And I really like the idea that nursing is both an art and a science--a craft, if you will--because we do need evidence-based practice, but we aren't diesel mechanics. Our medium moves and breathes and poops and cries and has fears and dreams and freedom and dignity, and when we are able to synthesize all of these conflicting values, it's not merely a profession: it's magic. It's nursecraft.

Great example summit.I've realized that what we do is NOT "just a job" it is a craft. I think if all the critical thinking skills I have used, especially in places where there was really no supplies, but found ways to fulfill my patient's interventions. Very crafty indeed...

thats exactly how I feel from the "undesirables" to having their back....i hate nights like last night but man I take pride in being a nurse. I absolutely still love it 11 years later!

Quote from hopefulwhoopNursing is neither an art nor a science. It's just a job.