A lived experience of dualism between the natural and human science paradigms in nursing

Aim. To describe the use of narrative as both phenomenon and method to illuminate college nurse educators' nursing knowledge development through their day-to-day stories on the institutional landscape, which shape and are shaped by health-care and nursing education changes. Background. The Ontario health-care reform in Canada and a shift in nursing curriculum have brought to light a different dimension of a theory-practice issue. The traditional predominant natural science approach in nursing is now no longer considered responsive to the unique characteristics of patients' health-care needs. Emerging from current nursing education is an emphasis on a human science paradigm. However, as many college nurse educators moved back and forth between their classrooms to clinical settings, they experienced tremendous tensions in living between the new caring paradigm and the old culture of biomedical science ideology. Compounding this challenge is a lack of understanding by the policymakers and administrators of the importance of nurses' contribution vis-à-vis an ailing health-care system. This growing complexity demands that nursing, as a practice discipline, should articulate its unique body of knowledge for advancing contributions in health care. Methods. My stories of experience and those of my participants were analysed narratively to determine the knowledge and understanding developed from living the complex and interwoven changes in nursing education and practice. Findings. Through living, telling, retelling and reliving our stories, my participants and I recognized a false dualism between the seemingly polarized biomedical and human science paradigms. Conclusion. The meaning of certainty-uncertainty inherent in nursing teaching and practice demands that nurse educators rethink how stories of experience play out in their understanding of teaching future graduates the interrelationships between these two approaches.