A Nursing Position on Global Healthcare: Our Commitment to Humankind
Taken from: International Consortium of Parse Scholars. (1999). A nursing position on global healthcare: Our commitment to humankind. Nursing Science Quarterly, 12, 347.
On November 15, 1998 the International Consortium of Parse Scholars (ICPS) voted to publish a resolution asserting the concerns of the Consortium regarding persons' experiences of health and quality of life and nurses' participation in healthcare around the world. The concerns are not new, but the idea to bear witness to the reality of people's healthcare experiences through a public resolution is. The consensus of the ICPS membership is that contemporary healthcare, oriented overwhelmingly toward diagnostic labeling and mechanistic fix-it strategies, fosters a dehumanizing regard for humans, an overly objectified, judgmental view of health, and a relationship between healthcare professionals and the general population that is distrustful. Whether strategies for providing healthcare around the world are socialistic or capitalistic, the dominant paradigms in medicine, nursing, and healthcare in general fail to address these concerns adequately, if at all. While we acknowledge the good will of our colleagues working in other paradigms of healthcare, we are compelled to speak out and to work for change.
Members of the ICPS live the values of and support a new paradigm, as evident in the on-going work of the Consortium and its publications. The urge to make our message even more explicit and public is born of a deep conviction that nurses and other healthcare professionals can and should participate in creating quality of life with people around the world in a different way. This different way of practice happens in revering the unity, dignity, and uniqueness of each person's life experience and seeking to serve people as they wish to be served on that basis. The following statement, then, elucidates the consensus and intent of the membership of the International Consortium of Parse Scholars.
Whereas
...quality of life from the person's perspective is the most fitting goal for nursing; ...quality of life unfolds uniquely with contemporary healthcare practices that respect and honor human choices; ...problem-based, diagnostic practice has failed to provide direction for fulfilling nursing's ethical mandate to respect humankind; ...standardized nursing interventions perpetuate a lingering disregard for human dignity; ...nursing based in the human sciences provides guidance for nursing practice; ...nursing research that aims to enhance understanding of human experience recognizes personal meaning and individual freedom; ...humans are unique beings who change and are changed with others in the process of living; ...humans make choices in life based on personal meanings and values, and this inherent freedom is to be honored by nurses; ...humans consistently indicate that they want nurses to listen to, act on, and respect their wishes, concerns, and priorities; ...the human becoming school of thought represents the only nursing theoretical perspective that focuses exclusively on humans' personal views of quality of life;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT
...we the undersigned will promote the human becoming school of thought through theory-guided research and practice in diverse communities around the world.
The Executive of the International Consortium of Parse Scholars
	Gail J. Mitchell, RN; PhD Patricia Lyon, RN; MScN William K. Cody, RN; PhD Christine Jonas-Simpson, RN; PhD F. Beryl Pilkington, RN; PhD Debra A. Bournes, RN; PhD John Daly, RN; PhD
And Members of the International Consortium of Parse Scholars