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Nurses in many industrialized countries are under pressure to prove that the care they provide is cost effective and an appropriate use of scarce healthcare funding. Attempts to describe what nursing care involves, however, have not yet resulted in a generally accepted articulation that is fully up to this task. This essay analyzes how Cartesian dualisms of mind versus body and knowledge versus virtue have contributed to the inadequacy of many current descriptions of nursing. The authors explore how a non-dualistic, practice-enhancing rhetoric might be developed, particularly in light of healthcare finance issues affecting college-educated nurses in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The authors present a diagram as a suggested tool for thinking that may help bring attention to neglected and undervalued aspects of nursing care. Special challenges in geriatric care are discussed.Nursing, health economics, aging, Cartesianism, body, care,

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