Family Practice Vol. 19, No. 2, 212-213
© Oxford University Press 2002
Book Review |
Practical nursing philosophy: the universal code.
David Seedhouse. (233 pages, £16.99.) John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2000. ISBN 0-471-49012-1.
Professor of Primary Care, School of Care Sciences, University of Glamorgan
Having drawn heavily on Seedhouse's work in the past, I was more than a little disappointed with this volume. A major failing is his seeming inability to use primary sources when critically appraising the nursing literature. This is apparent in Chapter 9 when he makes the sweeping generalization that "Most nursing philosophy is conceptually impotent". He then goes on to quote from a secondary source without any reference to the significant earlier primary sources which have been utilized to inform the Ruby Wesley work. This rather careless analysis is compounded by making unsupported assertions, such as the view that nursing relies ". . . on theories from other disciplines such as medicine . . .". Most polemicists would argue that medicine, as well as nursing, is a professional discipline which draws on a variety of epistomologies which are utilized in an integrated way to inform professional practice. Seedhouse asserts that ". . . western philosophy uses logic to analyse words . . . arguments . . . things . . . sensations and processes". He then fails to follow this important principle in this book despite claiming that he had acquired all of these skills after just 6 years training.
There are a number of contradictions in the text; for example, on the one hand, nurse theorists are slated for not carrying out a meta-analysis of the literature (Seedhouse himself apparently does not engage in this strategy). However, at the beginning of the book, it is noted that some nurse academics ". . . produce theoretically solid, practically relevant papers". It is puzzling that these were not critiqued and utilized in this current text; this produces the double whammy of making the same mistake that nurse theorists are alleged to make (on p. 11) in committing to ideas without thoroughly examining them!
Chapter 2 presents some rather convoluted notions on patient advocacy, which would benefit from being grounded in current policy imperatives such as clinical governance and evidence-based health care. This view from the Antipodes, as conveyed here, is acontextual and as such is less helpful than it might be. Chapter 3 is similarly placed in relation to deconstructing the concept of care, without grounding this in the context of a therapeutic relationship. The resulting conceptual vacuum makes it difficult to get a fix on the nurse–patient relationship in what appears to be a rather incoherent argument.
All in all, this volume might be useful as a demonstration piece in a critical appraisal workshop. It provides a comprehensive portfolio of examples of how not to construct a piece of professional literature, in which over 8% of the citations come from the author's own work.
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