title: The pattern that connects.
abstract: Debate over whether nursing is an art or a science culminates in the need for integration of the two as a guide to practice. The historical development of nursing knowledge reveals a spectrum of evolution from physical care to interpersonal relationships to an integrative approach and, most recently, to a unitary perspective. The author proposes pattern as the integrating factor that eliminates the dichotomies of traditional art and science and transforms nursing knowledge to a higher dimension that includes and transcends the knowledge that has gone before. Nursing praxis is presented as integrated theory-research-practice that is consistent with a unitary perspective.
authors.affiliation: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
authors.forename: Margaret A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Newman
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009729:Nursing / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D009736:Nursing Process / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends