Conversations on a Prairie Path

with nurse scholar Savina O. Schoenhofer

Between two points along the path: Brazil and Mississippi

How this conversation began

A prairie path ?

Savina O’Bryan Schoenhofer

Conversations on a Prairie Path

Scholarly characteristics Beginning of the journey Evolution of worldview and theory Scholarship of teaching The present and the future

Scholarship according to Parse

the three processes involved in scholarly activity are

a perpetual curiosity, a focused commitment, and a willingness to risk challenge.

(Parse, 1994).

Meleis on scholar characteristics

a passion for making a difference,

dismantling old patterns that are based on unequal power and reconstructing patterns that are based on equity, shared power, and collaboration in decisions

promoting cooperation and collaboration

showing leadership to develop critical and reflective thinking

Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood scholarship

diverse talents

connections of simplicity and wisdom that intermingle the cognitive, emotional and aesthetic lives of their target audience

gently tying shoelaces: living the theory

Brazil

This nurse was like none I had ever seen or heard of…she was educated, she was broad in her thinking, she was extremely creative and not at all "procedural" in her work with our clients, she was truly "their nurse" and

I loved how I saw her being nurse

The early 60’s … a special time in history

The Cold War was settling in, the Soviet Union was sending arms to Cuba, and there was a general fear of the spread of communism throughout Latin America.

Papal Volunteers for Latin America, a group that presaged the Peace Corp and did general community development work

At the age of 29 returned to college

2 Bachelor’s degree

2 Master’s degree

and a Ph.D

Influential authors in the 60’s and 70’s:

King and Brownell’s The Curriculum and the Disciplines of Knowledge

Nursing Conference Development Group on Concept Formalization

Fiere’s The Pegagogy of the Oppressed

 Teilhard de Chardin’s The Phenomenon of Man

Phenix's Realms of Meaning

Mayeroff's On Caring. 

…everything that Fritz Perls and “Carlos Canstenada” wrote

Development of concept of nursing

When I was in school, I was taught that the uniqueness of nursing was in the nursing process. I wasn't too long out of school when I realized that some problem solving process that was popularized by an ed psych person in the 1920's and actually promulgated by a philosopher in the middle ages was not what was unique about nursing…so I continued to inquire and to search and to try to understand by looking at my own practice and the practice of those I worked with to see what the "value added" of nursing actually was

Seed for passionate scholarship

My mission became teaching about nursing as a discipline and about explicit nursing theories/frameworks to help nurses realize the depth of nursing

...realize nursing as much more than an occupation and/or a warm fuzzy way to express good will. 

A growing circle of mentorship

The workshop facilitator was a member of Orem's inner circle and she joined our faculty that same year so I was mentored extremely well…her name is Marilyn Parker – the editor of several collections of primary source nursing theories. Marilyn and I have progressed from neophyte/mentor to peers and we are practically sisters, best friends still today.

So having 1) the question – what is nursing; and having 2) access to a wonderful theoretician as early and continuing mentor are the primary reasons for the trajectory my career path has taken.

Schoenhofer’s third mentor: Anne Boykin, RN, Ph.D

… Anne and I realized … caring was presented as a means…while some of the most profound literature was telling us that caring was not an instrument but an end in itself.

So we decided to move ahead and develop our own full blown theory of nursing that would be centered in caring….it was Anne Boykin who influenced me to realize that caring could be more than simply a "warm fuzzy idea", but could actually be a substantive concept that could ground the entire discipline in a way that was true to its origins…

Publishing career began early

Co-author of three books

Chapters in seven books

Over 23 articles in refereed journals

Early influences on the theory

Mayerhoff: On Caring

Roach: The Human Act of Caring: A Blueprint for the Health Professions

Carper: Fundamental Patterns of Knowing in Nursing

Nursing Development Conference Group: Concept Formalization in Nursing: Process and Product

Living the theory

To those of us who know Savina, her name is synonymous with caring. She is most decidedly a nurse scholar who has co-authored a nursing theory that is very personal and has offered an alternative way of practicing.

- from a former faculty colleague

Assumptions

to be human is to be caring persons are caring, moment to moment persons are whole and complete in the

moment personhood is lived grounded in caring personhood is enhanced in relationship with

caring others nursing is both a discipline and a profession

EVIDENCE OF CARING COMMUNICATED IN NURSING

VALUES EXPERIENCED IN THE NURSING SITUATION

NURSED NURSE ORGANIZATION SOCIETAL

CAN BE REPRESENTED, DESCRIBED, NOT ALWAYS “MEASURABLE”

ALWAYS QUALITATIVE

MAY BE QUANTITATIVELY REPRESENTED

Alternate theory: Nursing as Medical Assisting.

I use it kind of as "shock treatment" or "paradigm rattling", to help nurses realize that their present practice does have systematization,

but that the systematization may have been informally and subtly presented and absorbed without their realizing there could be another way to frame their nursing thought and thus their nursing practice

Phenomenological frame of reference

"only a very unparochial fish knows that its environment is wet". 

and that has to do with recognizing the lens/paradigm from within which we view the world...and that has to do, of course, with entertaining other paradigms

Scholarship of teaching

it thrills me to help beginning nursing students grasp the wonder of nursing as a discipline of knowledge and field of practice, to help them enlarge their vision

same thing about teaching grad students... to see nurses who for the most part, come back to school because they are getting pretty jaded and are looking for a way out of nursing practice, begin to reconnect with their early and deeply held commitment to engage in a life work of caring and to re-consider the value of their nursing over the intervening years and find joy in discovering that what they have been doing HAS been worthwhile after all. 

Use of story

I use stories in all my classes and in all of my research

...at the beginning of any class, the first thing I ask students to do is to recall, fully re-collect and re-live and then tell (usually in writing) the story of a nursing situation that illustrated whatever value we are looking at...usually I simply ask them to work with a story that tells of a time when they felt they were really nursing to the fullest.  That story then is one of the primary texts of their work … tell the story first, THEN start intellectualizing about it,

and for grad students too…

I also expect grad students who do theses/dissertations using a qualitative approach to have as part of their Chapter 1 a section called Horizon of Meaning, with two subsections: personal and professional...so they essentially tell a story that illustrates their own personal interest in the phenomenon/issue they are studying. 

Misssissippi

Teaching online

Golf!

Communicating with those interested in the theory

Future?

Text on nursing education

Working with doctoral students

International Nursing Philosophy presentation in September

A Pathfinder in Knowledge Generation

Forerunners

Pathfinders

Pathtakers

Conversations on a Prairie Path

with nurse scholar Savina O. Schoenhofer