Interested in writing?

Two items can be readily brought together here: 

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: JS Drummond
To: NURSE-PHILOSOPHY AT JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Sent: Tuesday, 22 April 2014, 18:00
Nursing Philosophy (Post)-Graduate Student Essay Prize

Hi Folks,

To interested parties, there is still time to submit an entry for the (Post)-Graduate Student Essay Prize to the Journal, Nursing Philosophy.

Details are on the IPONS website. http://www.ipons.co.uk

Best Wishes,
John Drummond (IPONS)
Sent on behalf of Derek Sellman, Editor, Nursing Philosophy

The latest paper on Hodges' model -

Exploring the Dimensions of Recovery and User Experience

- has progressed to the point were I am awaiting contact from the production office of the International Journal of Person Centered Medicine.

In addition to the (Post)-Graduate appeal with IPONS there may be an opportunity through h2cm. If there are any student nurses and other health care learners interested in models of care and the future, I would be pleased to offer some support on a paper. Perhaps there are personal tutors out there who could also engage? I can't offer a prize, but there is surely a prospect with the journal Advances in Nursing Sciences:

Models of Care for the Future
Vol 38:1 - June 2015
Manuscript Due Date: October 15, 2014
As nations worldwide seek to establish models of care that provide quality and efficiency, nurse leaders are emerging to play a significant role in the development of these models. For this issue of ANS we are seeking manuscripts that provide theoretical underpinnings of creative models of care, as well as evidence that supports their implementation. Manuscripts should be clearly grounded in a nursing perspective; the content can include philosophic, theoretic, empirical or ethical aspects related to the model.

I do have form here - two submissions without success - but the very helpful feedback did result in a publication elsewhere.

With studies of my own I can't write another paper alone, but perhaps I can help others. It's time for me to not just think about the model, but do something with it too. It feels strange finally having questions out there in the field - a small study.

Earlier this week a colleague referred to the model's elegant parsimony. This is definitely a quality of Hodges' model and one that merits exploration with new explorers.

IPONS 2012 Leeds - presentation completed and 2013...

As planned I am in Leeds at the moment attending the International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS). The keynotes and other sessions so far have proved really thought provoking, as with talking to other people in the evening.

My presentation was well received and well attended given the total attendees and three concurrent streams.

Two interesting points were raised in questions:

1. the value of a practical example of h2cm in use even in this forum.
2. the most interesting aspect of my 30 minute presentation was the potential research directions I have identified and am trying to pursue. These may extend beyond the model in terms of finalizing a research question. Would Hodges' model need to feature in the question? A very interesting point.

This is a small community, very welcoming and supportive. The conference next year is in Atlanta. There is plenty more to follow at 0900 on the main conference day, so I will add to this post shortly, or post another.

With the IPONS talk 'sorted', one thing that has me preoccupied is the closing date for abstract submissions for the ICN Congress: the 14th! It looks like it will be an individual effort, which was likely.

IPONS 2012 Leeds: Dementia and Robots - SF and Isaac Asimov ruined me, what about you?

Just before I disappear for 11 days holiday...

In the 1970s I could go into (the old) Smiths in Wigan with £1 and buy three paperbacks. I built quite an SF library that includes Heinlein, Clarke, Smith, Aldiss, Van Vogt, and Asimov, all a bit musty now and boxed.

Robots featured in many of those old books and Issac Asimov in particular with his Three Laws of Robotics. As a result I've tended to take robots for granted, not just in fiction and film but health care too. Big mistake!

It's almost as if every decade we should watch Blade Runner again and reflect. Take our bearings, triangulating them with these other things-beings. ...

The demographic time bomb is proving quite an incentive for developments in leading edge robotics. 

One of the IPONS keynotes with Dr Susan Barnes and Dr Theodore Metzler presented Three Dialogues Concerning Robots in Elder Care.

We were introduced to general developments including Asimo, which I remember seeing on QI:



- and a specific nursing example:

Through their three dialogues ranging through the developments of artificial intelligence and consciousness, Drs Barnes and Metzler also introduced Paro a Therapeutic Robot, which is modeled after a baby harp seal. For many years dolls of various sorts have been used in residential and nursing homes to provide comfort for selected residents. This is an example of personalised care. I know because there are times when it has seemed not quite right. The paradox is that this arises not necessarily from the client's response to the doll, but sometimes that of the other residents. The response of relatives and visitors can also vary, especially when efforts are ongoing to find ways to help someone settle. Seeing - and hearing someone who is agitated is distressing for all.

Needless to say the keynote prompted many robot related questions. Are we deceiving people who are cognitively impaired? Is this a variation of covert administration of medicine? It was later afternoon 1500 hours or thereabouts, which had me thinking about the phenomena of sundowning. A time of day when some residents can feel they need to be elsewhere. Former responsibilities and roles come back to the fore with what can be chaotic results.

This excellent keynote also made me think about how care needs are matched to technologies. What is the ethical spectrum of telecare, of remote care, of robotics (surgical, locomotion, dementia care)?

A person living with dementia at home may benefit from have a robotic carer / assistant who can respond to the repetitive questions that often follow. A robot is not going to get frustrated, angry (Asimov's Laws?) by such behaviour, unless it were conscious?

On the other hand don't we need the frustration of a family member, a carer, a human to alert society at large to this local crisis - situation? What are the reporting capabilities of the robot system?

I realised many years ago the notion of windows of opportunity in terms of supporting independence - delivering care. There may be an optimum period in a person's health career to introduce day care, respite care, care at home, a robot ...?

Nursing (like me) needs to wake up.

The next twenty - thirty years are going to be a real challenge in all sorts of ways and for many reasons. Throughout that time and beyond a good dose of philosophical thought will be the order of the day. IPONS got me thinking anew: perhaps you too? The society are planning changes to the website, membership and journal options.

Back at month end.
P.S. ICN abstract submitted. Prospect of a public health presentation next month.

18th Annual International Philosophy of Nursing Conference

in association with the International Philosophy of Nursing Society
(IPONS)
September 8th, 9th and 10th, 2014

Hosted by the School of Health Sciences, University of Nottingham, England, UK

Brave new world?
Health, technology and evidence based practice

Nurses have seen some fundamental changes in the way that healthcare is delivered. Body care is at the centre of nursing practice but the nature of that care has been extended beyond the personal, human-to-human contact, and is increasingly refracted through the medium of technological/scientific interventions. The way that these technologies interact with the human dimension does, and should, require critical analysis.This is particularly the case for nurses who are increasingly expected to adopt methods and approaches that change the nature of the nurse patient relationship.  Added to this is the way that clinicians/academics/researchers interact with health care issues, locally as well as globally.

There is an established debate and tension within the evidence based practice literature that illustrates a deep ambivalence about how a holistic approach to clinical practice relates to, enhances, or is undermined by the new health technologies. These include care pathways, systematic reviews of knowledge, the enabling/disabling effects of technology and the putative implication that there is an empiricist and dehumanising process involved in these developments. For example, what happens to the complexity of ethical debates when they are shaped in the form of arguments based on literature reviews? These may wittingly or unwittingly serve as a means of translating complex moral issues into usable clinical regimes that partially mimic meta-analyses. Furthermore we may ask what place narrative knowledge and qualitative experiences may have in this new world of implementation technologies? And how do the new interventions of telemedicine and other policy drivers that emphasise the “hospital-at-home” impact on the ways that nurses carry out health care?

This conference intends to examine these and other issues related to ‘Health, technology, and evidence-based practice’.

CONFERENCE DETAILS

Details of the Conference can now be found at the following link: ...

These details include the list of Keynote speakers; the venue; a Call for Abstracts; conference registration and accommodation, and transportation. Abstracts of the Keynote speakers and the full Conference Programme will be available soon on the above link.

Any specific queries should be addressed to Dr Stuart Nairn ...

other IPONS posts on W2tQ

Philosophy of information empowers philosophy of care

The moral and ethical dimensions of nursing quickly become apparent to individual practitioners and professional associations. Philosophy in nursing boasts specific courses, journals and groups, for example:

International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS)

Here on W2tQ, in papers and on the (former) website I have stressed the importance of the health career model as a framework that can utilise information as a fundamental and potentially unifying concept.

Expanding on the post last week about the philosophers' magazine [tpm50] let's look at Floridi's piece on the philosophy of information (PI). The 50 ideas featured are each only granted two pages, but this has a definite philosophical equivalent twitter-styled appeal. On page 42 (- 43) Floridi notes that:

... PI possesses one of the most powerful conceptual vocabularies ever devised in philosophy. This is because one can rely on informational concepts whenever a complete understanding of some series of events is unavailable or unnecessary for providing an explanation. Virtually any issue can be rephrased informationally. Such semantic power is a great advantage of PI, understood as a methodology. ...

It shows that we a dealing with an influential paradigm. But it may also be a disadvantage, because a metaphorically pan informational approach can lead to a dangerous equivocation, namely, thinking that since any x can be described in (more or less metaphorically) informational terms, then the nature of any x is genuinely informational. (Luciano Floridi, 2010).

Admittedly Floridi's context is the position and status of PI as an emerging discipline within philosophy. As he notes the vocabulary while powerful lies in the discipline of philosophy.

Given my preoccupation with information, Floridi's observation above is a timely warning for me and the many nurses who in the past saw a concomitant risk that in adopting the nursing process, patients (and carers) would be processed. Ironically, this processing concerned information. The workflow - form and layout of the documentation - was prescribed. This is an old tale, with the nursing process being subsumed within the routine work of nursing. Perhaps though this also demonstrates a need for a new debate?

My interest in information is as a trope to explain the significance of the care (knowledge) domains that underpin Hodges' model. Crucially, though these can stand on their own as nursing philosophy issues. Joining the efforts of the nursing philosophers above, this can bring information and philosophy out of the academic realm to include a more practical and grounded variety of topics:

FROM: personal identity,
definitions and ownership of computer based records,
utility versus security of information (summary care record ...),
definitions of information (data, knowledge) - through
TO: patient information and patient informatics, ...
where is collective informatics^# heading?

Taking Floridi's lead - which of the above .... are core nursing (health) information concepts (and not just freeloading info-masqueraders along for the ride)? Well, that is a question for a new community of scholars to decide?

Philosophy resources: Interpersonal care domain

^#Collective informatics = all the claimed informatics disciplines combined?

28th Annual International Hybrid Nursing Philosophy Conference, July 22-24, 2026

Join the UC Irvine Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing Center for Nursing Philosophy in association with the International Philosophy of Nursing Society (IPONS) for the 28th International Nursing Philosophy Conference.

The HYBRID conference will take place physically at the University of California, Irvine in sunny, coastal Southern California, USA, as well as virtually via Zoom.

This hybrid, multidisciplinary conference aims to generate conversations between philosophy and nursing through a series of invited panel conversations and events. Cutting-edge peer-reviewed abstract panels on current scholarship and ideas in nursing philosophy will also be featured.

Contacts and site ...

October beckons - update PHP, Drupal and Public Health

October looks to be a busy month, at least the first half.

It's the PHPNW Conference next weekend and I'm pleased that they were able to use some copy I provided for their blog. The 2010 conf was very good and 2012 is looking a real treat.

Before then, this Wednesday evening it's the monthly NW Drupal User Group meeting also in Manchester. They are continuing the Back to Basics sessions. Since last month I've not had much time to explore and use DrupalPro. I will do before Wednesday, after the excellent input I was provided with last month it's over to me now.

Another event - and one needing a presentation is the -

Institute of Public Health: Open Conference 2012

Thursday, 11^th October 2012 at The King's Hall, Belfast. After visiting Dublin last November for the first time I'm really looking forward to this brief first trip to Northern Ireland too.

On the blog front I've deleted a service that was slowing things down. I've also reduced the total number of posts on display.

A fellow delegate and a full-time academic at the IPONS conference in Leeds earlier this month suggested that I blog less and write more. Things will go quieter here - year on year...

More to follow - for the time being!

Nightingale forgotten: Leaving the optimism to others...

individual

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

group

?	One in four 18 - 24-year-olds failed to identify Florence Nightingale as a nurse in a survey that also revealed that one in five people chose not to go into the profession because they felt nurses were unappreciated. ... The Times, p.4.
?	?

Bates Center Blog:

What Would Florence Nightingale Do (WWFND)?: Nightingale and 21st Century Health Care Reform

 c/o IPONS


The Times, Nightingale forgotten, Tuesday May 12 2015. p.4.(Poll, London Clinic)

Hodges' model = Four care domains + Spiritual