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Building on the past to create nursing's future
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BUILDING ON THE PAST TO CREATE NURSING'S FUTURE Daniel J. Pesut, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN
A
rticles in this 25th Anniversary issue of Nursing Outlook have described the promise, progress, and historical development of selected issues through time. As a profession, we have come very far in a relatively short period. To keep the momentum, we need to build on our past to create nursing's future. Futurists talk of 4 futures.l'4 The possible future encompasses everything that might happen. The plausible future, derived from trends and forecasts that are combined to create alternative scenarios, represents what could happen. Probable futures are based on the analysis and examination of present reality. A preferable future is what persons want to have happen by creating it. Consideration of these 4 futures, possible, plausible, probable, and preferred, sets the stage for serious reflection. Author Allen Tough's book, Crucial Questions About the Future,3 offers the following questions to assist in reflections about the future: (1) What is most important of all? (2) Why should we care about the next 40 years? (3) How much responsibility do we have to the future generations? (4) Why do we act in ways that hurt our future? (5) What will our actual future turn out to be ? (6) How can we achieve a satisfactory future? (7) From which aspects of reality can we gain meaning and purpose? (8) How can each person contribute? (9) Why is it worth trying? As a discipline, what resources do we have to help us navigate and create a preferred future? Dr Eleanor Sullivan's recently published book, Creating Nursing's Future: Issues, Opportunities and Challengd is a useful resource that helps answer the question about navigating and creating a preferred future. This book is an excellent issues book suitable for both undergraduate and graduate programs and nurses who practice in any context who are concerned about creating a preferrable future for the nursing profession.
Nurs Outlook 1999;47:107. Copyright © 1999 by Mosby, Inc. 0029-6554/99/$8.00 + 0 35/1198854
NURSING OUTLOOK
MAY/JUNE 1999
Dr Sullivan dedicates her book "to the nurses upon whose work we stand today and to the nurses who will follow us." The book's 37 chapters are organized among 6 units: (1) Nursing in Society, (2) The Future of Practice and Education, (3) Administration in the Future, (4) Accountability, Quality and Control, (5) Nursing's Scientific Future, and (6) Expanding Boundaries. Each of these sections contains a discussion of future-relevant topics such as the impact of scientific and technologic discoveries on practice, use of technology to teach, the evolution of faculty practice, the future of continuing education and higher education, issues of licensure, accreditation and the growth of collaborative interdisciplinary research, the future career trajectory of nurse-scientists and the role of professional organization, interdisciplinary practice, and education. Dr Sullivan urges readers to create a preferable future for nursing through the thoughtful examination, reflection, and professional action associated with negotiating the issues, opportunities, and challenges she and her cohort of authors outline and discuss. Contributing authors provide commentary, insights, ideas, reflections, and challenges regarding creation of a preferred nursing future. These experts create scenarios through an analysis and synthesis of current trends and forecasts. The juxtaposition of both the probable and the preferred creates a tension that must be mediated and resolved by thoughtful analysis. Discussion exercises and questions posed at the end of each chapter expand the issues, reveal the challenges, and support readers in the negotiation of threats and opportunities. What I like about the book is that it helps stimulate foresight. "What the future holds for us depends on what we hold for the future. ''4 The Tarlows make the following observations4: • When you practice "edging" or peripheral viewing, you are less biased because the habitual or status quo is less dominant; ignored information comes to the fore. • When you look at the world as streams,
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flows, fields, and vortices, the loss of detail allows predispositions to drop away. When you become more precise, individualized, and unique in your views, programmed responses and other persons' opinions begin to disappear. When you establish new sensory priorities and take information breaks, complete with far out day dreams, then new data can inch their way in. When you allow yourself to be "paranormal" and stretch your sense, you see beyond the expected and shatter preexisting boundaries. W h e n you modify your identity, you begin to see through different eyes and therefore tap into previously unavailable perspectives. When you add passion to your visions, you awaken the drive to see a longer view and naturally attend to more subtleties.
To what degree will we profit from our 25 years of experience? Will we attend to information that we have previously ignored? How will we nurture our capacity for foresight? Health futures work involves more than identification of what might happen; it enables persons and organizations to enhance the leadership necessary to move in desired directions. 1 What type of future appeals to you--possible, plausible, probable, or preferred? How will you navigate the future? These crucial questions may be answered in the 50th Anniversary issue of Nursing Outlook! []
REFERENCES 1. Sullivan EJ. Creating nursing's future: issues, opportunities and challenges. St Louis (MO): Mosby; 1999. 2. KornewiczD, Palmer M. The preferable future for nursing. Nurs Outlook 1997;45:108-13. 3. Tough A. Crucial questions about the future. New York:University Press of America; 1991. 4. Tarlow M, Tarlow E Navigating the future. New York:McGraw-Hill; 1999. DANIEL J. PESUT is professor and Chair of the Department of Environments for Health at Indiana University School of
Nursing, Indianapolis. Pesut
107
Fut=
BUILDING ON THE PAST TO CREATE NURSING'S FUTURE Daniel J. Pesut, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN
A
rticles in this 25th Anniversary issue of Nursing Outlook have described the promise, progress, and historical development of selected issues through time. As a profession, we have come very far in a relatively short period. To keep the momentum, we need to build on our past to create nursing's future. Futurists talk of 4 futures.l'4 The possible future encompasses everything that might happen. The plausible future, derived from trends and forecasts that are combined to create alternative scenarios, represents what could happen. Probable futures are based on the analysis and examination of present reality. A preferable future is what persons want to have happen by creating it. Consideration of these 4 futures, possible, plausible, probable, and preferred, sets the stage for serious reflection. Author Allen Tough's book, Crucial Questions About the Future,3 offers the following questions to assist in reflections about the future: (1) What is most important of all? (2) Why should we care about the next 40 years? (3) How much responsibility do we have to the future generations? (4) Why do we act in ways that hurt our future? (5) What will our actual future turn out to be ? (6) How can we achieve a satisfactory future? (7) From which aspects of reality can we gain meaning and purpose? (8) How can each person contribute? (9) Why is it worth trying? As a discipline, what resources do we have to help us navigate and create a preferred future? Dr Eleanor Sullivan's recently published book, Creating Nursing's Future: Issues, Opportunities and Challengd is a useful resource that helps answer the question about navigating and creating a preferred future. This book is an excellent issues book suitable for both undergraduate and graduate programs and nurses who practice in any context who are concerned about creating a preferrable future for the nursing profession.
Nurs Outlook 1999;47:107. Copyright © 1999 by Mosby, Inc. 0029-6554/99/$8.00 + 0 35/1198854
NURSING OUTLOOK
MAY/JUNE 1999
Dr Sullivan dedicates her book "to the nurses upon whose work we stand today and to the nurses who will follow us." The book's 37 chapters are organized among 6 units: (1) Nursing in Society, (2) The Future of Practice and Education, (3) Administration in the Future, (4) Accountability, Quality and Control, (5) Nursing's Scientific Future, and (6) Expanding Boundaries. Each of these sections contains a discussion of future-relevant topics such as the impact of scientific and technologic discoveries on practice, use of technology to teach, the evolution of faculty practice, the future of continuing education and higher education, issues of licensure, accreditation and the growth of collaborative interdisciplinary research, the future career trajectory of nurse-scientists and the role of professional organization, interdisciplinary practice, and education. Dr Sullivan urges readers to create a preferable future for nursing through the thoughtful examination, reflection, and professional action associated with negotiating the issues, opportunities, and challenges she and her cohort of authors outline and discuss. Contributing authors provide commentary, insights, ideas, reflections, and challenges regarding creation of a preferred nursing future. These experts create scenarios through an analysis and synthesis of current trends and forecasts. The juxtaposition of both the probable and the preferred creates a tension that must be mediated and resolved by thoughtful analysis. Discussion exercises and questions posed at the end of each chapter expand the issues, reveal the challenges, and support readers in the negotiation of threats and opportunities. What I like about the book is that it helps stimulate foresight. "What the future holds for us depends on what we hold for the future. ''4 The Tarlows make the following observations4: • When you practice "edging" or peripheral viewing, you are less biased because the habitual or status quo is less dominant; ignored information comes to the fore. • When you look at the world as streams,
•
•
•
•
•
flows, fields, and vortices, the loss of detail allows predispositions to drop away. When you become more precise, individualized, and unique in your views, programmed responses and other persons' opinions begin to disappear. When you establish new sensory priorities and take information breaks, complete with far out day dreams, then new data can inch their way in. When you allow yourself to be "paranormal" and stretch your sense, you see beyond the expected and shatter preexisting boundaries. W h e n you modify your identity, you begin to see through different eyes and therefore tap into previously unavailable perspectives. When you add passion to your visions, you awaken the drive to see a longer view and naturally attend to more subtleties.
To what degree will we profit from our 25 years of experience? Will we attend to information that we have previously ignored? How will we nurture our capacity for foresight? Health futures work involves more than identification of what might happen; it enables persons and organizations to enhance the leadership necessary to move in desired directions. 1 What type of future appeals to you--possible, plausible, probable, or preferred? How will you navigate the future? These crucial questions may be answered in the 50th Anniversary issue of Nursing Outlook! []
REFERENCES 1. Sullivan EJ. Creating nursing's future: issues, opportunities and challenges. St Louis (MO): Mosby; 1999. 2. KornewiczD, Palmer M. The preferable future for nursing. Nurs Outlook 1997;45:108-13. 3. Tough A. Crucial questions about the future. New York:University Press of America; 1991. 4. Tarlow M, Tarlow E Navigating the future. New York:McGraw-Hill; 1999. DANIEL J. PESUT is professor and Chair of the Department of Environments for Health at Indiana University School of
Nursing, Indianapolis. Pesut
107