On the humanities of nursing

The author contends that the present state of nursing research, as focused on studies that produce the sort of positivistic evidence espoused by the evidence-based medicine movement, emphasizes something other than the goals of nursing. This emphasis has distorted nursing practice by focusing on the ostensibly quantifiable. Using Virginia Henderson's classic definition of nursing and the work of the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, the author argues for the centrality of the human experience in the practice and the research of nursing.