Usually, when arts and humanities are included in nursing education
programs, it is for their humanizing effects. Traditionally they have
been recognized as having a civilizing influence. So in nursing they are
seen as supporting the elements of humaneness and humanitarianism.
Furthermore, they are a necessary antidote for the depersonalization
that accompanies scientific technology and mechanization.
The arts are valued also for their liberalizing effect. They stimulate
imaginative creativity. They broaden a person's perspective of the human
situation, of man in his world. For instance, depictions of suffering
man or of other aspects of the human condition that are found in poetry,
drama, or literature are far more descriptive and much closer to reality
than those given in typical textbooks.
Current nursing practice reflects the educational preparation of nurses
that is weighted heavily with scientific courses and the methodology of
positivistic science. Arts and humanities are a necessary complement.
Science aims at universals and the discovery of general laws; art
reveals the uniqueness of the individual. While science strives for
quantification, art is more concerned with quality. Strict conformance
to methodology and replicability are prized in scientific studies,
whereas freedom and uniqueness of style reign in art. Science, forever
updating itself, opens the nurse's eyes to constant change and
innovation; the classics promote a sense of the unchanging and lasting
in man's world. Science may provide the nurse with knowledge on which to
base her decision, but it remains for the arts and humanities to direct
the nurse toward examination of values underlying her practice. Thus,
humanistic nursing has both scientific and artistic dimensions.