Abstract
D.Cur. (Professional Nursing)
The negative experiences reflected by nurses indicate that current management models, on which the management
of nurses is modelled, are not capable of generating solutions towards the present problems and
the dilemma of this practice area.
Two objectives have been stated in this study. namely the design of a nurses management model for professional
wholeness and to formulate guidelines for a management manual which will facilitate professional
wholeness.
The construction of this model deliberately deviates from existing management frameworks and a nursing
theory is used as basis, since nurses management needs it's own nursing framework to view the nursing
organization as a unique organizational entity with corresponding unique interactional patterns.
The inherent service and wholeness orientation of "Nursing for the Whole Person Theory" was utilised to construct
a management model directed towards professional wholeness.
A nurses management model for professional wholeness was generated up to level three of situation-relating
theory. The process of model construction was put through three phases by which factor isolation, factor
relations and situation relations have been described.
The model is based on a wholeness approach by which the management of nurses is viewed as a service
built on devotion and stewardship and directed towards the nurse as a whole person being an integral part
of the nursing organization as a protesslonal organizational entity.
The nursing organization, similar to the nurse, is viewed as a whole with an external and internal organizational
environment. The nursing organization as a whole has bodily/physical, psychological (intellectual, emotional,
volitional), spiritual and social dimensions where a state of maximal professional wholeness is reached
only by deliberate and dynamic management interaction facilitated in a coordinated and integrated manner
by comparable wholeness management processes.
The approach of management for wholen ess set as point of departure that nurses who experience professional
wholeness to a large extent will have a greater potential to render quality nursing and therefore facilitate
health with others.
Professional wholeness starts with the nurse manager, who in the quest for own personal wholeness and
professional wholeness, facilitates the professional wholeness of the integral parts of the nursing organization
namely the individual nurses and the nurse community.
Professional wholeness implicates a dynamic movement on a continuum which mirrors the state of professional
wholeness. The position on the continuum at anyone stage is dependant on the interactions taking
place within the internal organizational en-vironment and between the internal organizational environment and
the external organizational environment.
The possible outcomes of the managerraent of nurses is a state which varies dynamically between minimal
professional wholeness and maximal professional Wholeness.
Management strategies which promote, rnalntain and restore, direct the intensity of interactions for facilitating
the professional wholeness of nurses, tt1enurse community and the nursing organization. The choice of a
specific strategy is based on the state of protesslonal wholeness reflected.
A list of words has been developed (basEd on a Judeo Christian management ethic) to generate qualitative
indices for minimal and maximal professional Wholeness.
The quest for wholeness management is to striVe purposely and dynamicaly towards the reflection of a state
of maximal professional wholeness by tile nurse, the nurse community and the nursing organization.
The model has subsequently been evaluated by experts and from the evaluation it was concluded that the
model can make a unique contribution to the practice area of nurse management.
The application of the model in the practice area of nurses management will purposely and dynamically contribute
towards solving the current dilemma of this practice area by enabling nurses to reach the objectives
of nursing namely maximum quality nursing and to facilitate health intentionally.
Broad guidelines have been stated as recommendations for further research. In the formulation of
hypotheses an attempt has been made to capture the core aspects of wholeness management that need
further empirical clarrification.
The second objective of this study was addressed by formulating professional wholeness gUidelines for a
manual that will facilitate professional wholeness.
Eight modules were developed. The guidelines and objectives of the modules were formulated to enable students
enrolling for a course in nurse management for professional wholeness to facilitate the principles
of wholeness management in the nurse's management pratice area.
The module dealing with the intellectual wholeness management processes has been developed as an example
to give a more detailed version of the guidelines that have been formulated.
In conclusion, the nurse management model for professional wholeness is a vision and an inspiration to
return to the original mission of nursing where nursing again will become the central theme. Where the inherent
service talent which distinguishes nurses from any other employee and which led them to the choice
of nursing as a career will not be brutalized in the management process but will rather be embraced and
nurtured!