Book Review. Towards an Ecology of Nursing Knowledge: Nursing and Humanities by Dr. Graham McCaffrey

Abstract

McCaffrey, G. (2020). Nursing and humanities. Routledge. (pp. 127, $63.95 CAD, Hardcover) Nursing and Humanities by Dr. Graham McCaffrey explores the role of humanities in nursing knowledge, and McCaffrey makes a compelling case that humanities are an integral, though often invisible, part of nursing practice. He places nursing humanities within the sphere of health humanities and provides a cogent argument, along with examples and insights, to support the claim that the humanities offer not merely another form of knowledge to sit alongside science, but also a way to integrate the diversity of nursing knowledge into a coherent framework or ecology of nursing practice. In this respect, the book serves as an important development in understanding nursing practice and forms a possible bridge between the tensions inherent in contemporary explorations of nursing as an art and science. The book is aimed at nurses, graduate students, nurse educators and researchers, and anyone with an interest in nursing theory. Nursing and Humanities is rich with ideas and propositions, often thought-provoking and challenging in its offering of an evolution of thinking about nursing knowledge and practice.