Reseña

Nursing care is a practice that is guided by knowledge and by love

When I think what the essence of nursing practice is, I realize that our delivery of care is based on love for humanity and knowledge that is guided by theory and research. To elaborate a little as an educator, I know that nurses learn theory as some sort of a road map to guide their research and practice, which facilitates the acquisition of their mission: to insure patients? well-being.

Adaptacion y Cuidado en el Ser Humano. Una Vision de Enfermeria is a wonderful tool for teaching under-graduate and graduate nurses how to build delicate structures of logic, in order to comprehend the pivotal role that theory plays in our practice. In this book, the Roy Adaptation Model is an excellent example in how to integrate nursing theory into our practice.

The purpose of this book is to help nurses comprehend that, through the use of theory, our visions broaden. Its readers see many things differently and envision many different ways to impart bedside care. They will also learn to critically create nursing interventions whose existence they were unaware of and to evaluate many relationships that we could not have possibly done without the use of theory.

The group of La Sabana School of Nursing began this project with the conviction that the Roy Adaptation Model (RAM) has the breadth, scope, and adaptability to be used with South American populations. Furthermore, this group believes that nursing practice, based on the model, has created a higher level of knowledge that it is particularly efficient for nursing practice, and also aids in establishing guidelines for critical analyses and processes to evaluate the relationships of its practice to the model.

The book is divided in nine chapters. Chapter one deals with historical and philosophical bases, and visions for the 21st century written by Dr. Callista Roy. Chapter 2 describes the Roy Adaptation Model and processes of adaptation and cognition taking sociological and psychological nursing references to conclude that the cognitive process can determine the parameters that can guide the nursing process. Chapter 3 addresses pre-natal and post-partum care while Chapter 4 covers newborn care. Chapter 5 presents the infant care. The next chapter discusses the adaptation of the adolescent. Chapter 7 focuses on the young adult care while Chapter 8 elaborates the adaptation of the older healthy adult. The final chapter talks about experiences and application of the model to research, education, and practice.

I believe that the dream and the vision in writing this book has been to make theory more relevant for the practice of nursing in South America and also to stimulate further use of the model by leading the way to the development of better nursing practice and establishment of evidence-based practice. This book is unique in that it is comprehensive and moves beyond the description of the model, and it gives direction for its utilization in practice settings. Nurses in academia and in practice will benefit from the many examples of the use of the model that are provided.

The members of the College of Nursing of La Sabana University are indebted to Sr. Callista Roy, and to all who have encouraged and assisted in the development of this project.

Martha V. Whetsell, PhD, RN, ARNP
Doctora en Enfermería
Profesora Lehmon College of Nursing
New York, EE.UU.