Nursing Epistemology Essay

Ontology Nursing ontology focuses on thinking about what is best for the patient. Those who join the nursing profession most likely do so because they genuinely care about people and have a drive to help and heal others. Ontology is a way of being and doing (Chinn & Kramer, 2015). In simpler terms nursing ontology can be viewed as the unified lens which nurses look through. Further, the ontology of nursing describes what is most characteristic and fundamental to nursing practice (Flaming, 2004). Nurses are groomed to view patients as an end-in themselves. By viewing patients this way nurses embrace unique characteristics of each individual so that the patient becomes their primary focus. Brown et al., (2008) describe ontology as what is considered to be the truth. In
When situations arise that the nurse does not believe to be in the best interest of their patients, they will inquire about what can be done better or differently for next time due to their overwhelming ambition to improve patients health status. Therefore, ontological beliefs such as the desire to help people drive nurses to learn therefore initiating nursing epistemology.
Epistemology
Epistemology is what and how people know. “Nursing epistemology is the study of how nurses come to know what they think they know, what exactly nurses do know, how nursing knowledge is structured and on what basis knowledge claims are made” (Schultz & Meleis, 1988). There are many ways that nurses come to know, therefore understanding the patterns in which nurses know provides a rationale for how nurses conduct themselves in nursing practice. Carper (1978) identifies four patterns of knowing which include: “(1) empirics, the science of nursing; (2) esthetics, the art of nursing; (3) the component of a personal knowledge in nursing; and (4) ethics, the components of moral knowledge in nursing.” There is a diverse foundation of