This study used a qualitative research design incorporating principles of social constructionism, hermeneutic dialectic method, Neo-Socratic dialogue and philosophy for reporting the tacit and social knowledge constructions underlying particular ways of knowing that inform the experiential reality of love in the practice of nursing and midwifery. The philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, that culminated in his magnum opus of the metaphysics of otherness, provided the theoretical underpinning for the interpretation of the experiences nurses and midwives believed were examples of love in their clinical practice in Australia, Singapore and Bhutan.
What is love in nursing and midwifery? The answer is moral responsibility. The relational context has a nurse and midwife constantly exposed to patient situations that give rise to expressions of love as moral responsibility. It is a form of love that centres on the ability of our being, or at least the possibility of our being, to transcend its everyday form to a metaphysical state of being moral. It enables a nurse and midwife to transcend the isolation associated with their personal being as a self-project, to be for the patient as a first priority. But while the Goodness of the Good assigns the nurse and midwife responsible and is expressed to their personal being in the form of the urge to do, what to do in caring for the patient is a matter of living out the command to be responsible and will be different for each nurse and midwife. However, no matter the outcome, love as moral responsibility will always leave a nurse and midwife feeling there is still more to be done in being responsible.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217264 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Fitzgerald, Leslie Robert, leslie.fitzgerald@deakin.edu.au |
| Publisher | Deakin University. School of International and Political Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.deakin.edu.au/disclaimer.html), Copyright Leslie Robert Fitzgerald |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds