Abstract
AFTER RECENTLY HEARING the paper presented by Akinsanya and Hayward at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Rcn Research Society, it became apparent to me that a controversy is likely to arise between what may be called the biological and psychosocial advocates in nurse education. Akinsanya and Hayward (1980) suggest that the concept of bionursing could be introduced to forge a link between biological sciences and nursing. While it may be unrepresentative, this author's experience suggests that biological as well as medical approaches to nursing dominate the nursing curriculum. This is not, however, inconsistent with Akinsanya and Hayward's proposition when one considers their comment on the study by Wilson (1975): 'The disturbing aspect of this study is the evidence which suggests that the application of theoretical knowledge of the biological sciences is unstructured and appears to be haphazard.' This suggests that biases in favour of biological sciences are not even efficient at this time. Others have pointed to the lack of behavioural sciences. Birch (1978) provides evidence that the science of psychology finds little or no obvious time in the timetables which he looked at. It is not uncommon now to find nurse tutors who have taken up an extreme stance in favour of psychosocial sciences in order to counter biological and medical domination in the nursing curriculum. This, however, indicates the presence of a highly subjective influence in the design and operation of the curriculum. It is suggested here that bias should be avoided by objective procedure, and a model is described which may act as a criterion when assessing b iases in the curriculum. A fundamental assumption in this discussion is that the nursing curriculum should be role-based. The learner should be educated to become a safe practitioner, an efficient student, a manager, a teacher, a professional, or a researcher. While it will only be stated here that it is a matter of urgency that these roles for entry to the profession should be decided, it will be assumed that the role of safe
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