Importance of Nursing Theory in Nursing Profession - Essay Example

Nursing theory assists to differentiate what ought to form the basis of practice by apparently describing nursing (Parker & Smith, 2010). Since the primary proponent of nursing-caring-cannot is assessed, it is significant to have a theory to evaluate and explain what nurses do.

As medicine makes efforts to move towards implementing a more multidiscipline approach to health care, nursing continues to endeavor to institute an exceptional body of knowledge (McKenna, 2006). This can be observed as efforts by the nursing profession to keep its professional boundaries. The issue is unclear because the boundaries between nursing and medicine are never fixed. For instance, nurses progressively increase their range of practice by carrying out tasks previously performed by doctors. However, since these limits are continually changing, perhaps it is more significant for the nurses to define their stance and their role (McEwen & Wills, 2014). By offering nurses a sense of identity, nursing theory helps patients, managers, and other health care practitioners to identify the exceptional contribution of nurses in health care. Lastly, nursing theory such as the Self-Care theory offers the nurses an understanding of their roles and purposes in health care (Parker & Smith, 2010).