Exercising Nursing Essential and Effective Freedom in Behalf of Social Justice

Abstract

This article expands upon previous work by the authors to develop a model of nursing essential and effective freedom to facilitate nursing action in behalf of social justice. The article proposes that while social justice is rooted in nursing's ontological, epistemological, and moral foundations, the discipline's social justice mandate is constrained by its historical and contemporary location within an institutionalized medical paradigm. We present a model of nursing "essential" and "effective" freedom based on the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan to illustrate how nursing can transcend these barriers. This humanizing model is illustrated through personal narratives of the authors.

Impact of workplace violence against nurses’ thriving at work, job satisfaction and turnover intention: A cross‐sectional study

“…The key to the question is how to manage and improve the SWB of nurses. Based on the modulating effect of SWB discussed in this study, the feasible measures and suggestions for managers are as follows: promoting nurses’ togetherness and cooperation, such as working and learning in groups (Utriainen & Alamursula, ); enhancing fluent and practical organisation of work; encouraging senior nurses to assist novice nurses in their work (Chana, Kennedy, & Chessell, ); establishing freedom to express diverse feelings in the work community (Perry, Willis, Peterson, & Grace, ); clearing and defining the status related to the work itself; keeping fair and supportive leadership; ensuring smooth flow of information in the workplace; encouraging knowledge sharing; and improving the creativity of nurses (Malik, Dhar, & Handa, ). These measures are conducive to enhancing the SWB of nurses, which plays a moderating role in the influence of WPV on job satisfaction and turnover intention.…”

Social Justice in Health System; a Neglected Component of Academic Nursing Education: A Qualitative Study

“…Disproportionate burden of diseases and deaths in parts of society associated with environmental and socioeconomic factors has been recognized for decades; however, the number of documents on these issues has increased dramatically over the past 15 years [4]. The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health attributes these differences to social inequalities in the distribution of power, income, shelter, education, and healthcare as well as climate change, vulnerability, and other life conditions.…”

Social justice as an expression of caring through holistic admissions in a nursing program: A proposed conceptual model

“…The AACN identified social justice as a core nursing value and defined it as “acting in accordance with fair treatment regardless of economic status, race, ethnicity, age, citizenship, disability, or sexual orientation” 6,15 (p950). To achieve social justice and health equity among all members of a society, 4 system‐wide inequities that disadvantage certain groups must be resolved 16 . However, while nursing education recognizes social justice as a core nursing value, schools of nursing fail to consider social justice in their admitting practices.…”

“…Poor health outcomes are the result of several factors such as lower socioeconomic status, cultural and power differences, education, vulnerability, and substandard living conditions 4 . Several examples of healthcare disparities were identified by Scott and Zerwic 3 : (a) Black/African Americans experience a higher death rate from stroke, diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS, cancer, pneumonia, and influenza than whites.…”