“On Mattering”—A Tribute to Donna Diers

Abstract

Donna Diers, nursing legend and former editor of Image: Journal of Nursing Scholarship, died on February 24, 2013. She left a remarkable legacy as a nurse educator (former Dean of Yale University, School of Nursing), nurse editor, and nurse leader.On Mattering (Diers, 1993) was the title of Diers' last editorial, and not only did she matter, but she also taught the world how much nursing matters. What better way to pay tribute to this iconic nurse then to revisit some of her words from the editorials she published in these pages? In On Mattering, Diers opines, Mostly I have learned about the enormous range of things nurses think about. But that's not what matters. What matters is what Image has done that made a (Diers, 1993, p. 86). She then goes on to outline how Image: Journal of Nursing Scholarship published articles that were not only highly cited, but helped change health policy, support priorities for nursing research, and highlighted the needs of un· derserved populations (such as people living with AIDS). Diers helped us all to seriously think about what matters, and she did so with great good humor and a piercing intellect that made experiencing her words (either verbally or in writing) a pleasure. She set a high bar for all who followed to write and publish articles that really matter.In On Progress (Diers, 1986b), Diers wrote about what she would not publish. She says, Bad writing will always guarantee a bounced article. She then continues, Reviewers also tend to be undisposed to recommend . . . articles which are clearly term papers in some graduate program (Nobody really does 'concept analyses' in real life, do they?) (Diers, 1986b, p. 134) She bemoans articles from authors who have not adequately read the literature: have received a fair number of articles, written with glowing enthusiasm, from people who have had a brilliant new insight Unfortunately, often the idea is underdeveloped or someone else has already had (Diers, 1986b, p. 134). And she concludes, hope we have been fair, occasionally provocative, sometimes funny, and, most of all (Diers, 1986b, p. 134). Diers' words were more than occasionally provocative, and they were always useful because they made the nursing community, and indeed all who read her words, think.Diers made us laugh while we were thinking. Her editorials always seemed like conversations in which she thought out loud and invited us to think with her. For example, in On Words she ponders the difference words make using the example of the difference between doctoring a cold and nursing a cold. She concludes that, doctor up and nurse along (Diers, 1986c, p. 30). Whether her editorial was about the most abstract or most concrete topic, she always encouraged us to see the meaning behind the words we use.In the pages of Image: Journal of Nursing Scholarship and in her editorials, Diers celebrated nursing research (Diers, 1986a, 1987c) and nursing scholarship (Diers, 1987d). She dissected with clarity important issues of the day, such as globalization, about which she said, Going international not only gives us access to the wisdom, culture and history of another's country, but it also provides a force for clarifying our own work, so that we can communicate about it and be informed by the work of others. We can aim for a nursing science that transcends international boundaries, and we can compare experiences, learning from the special circumstances of others how to improve our own lot (Diers, 1987b, p. 166). Indeed, one of the current contributions of the editorial board of the Journal of Nursing Scholarship is to maximize the dissemination of scholarship that embodies that global perspective Diers envisioned. …