MARTHA ROGERS UNITARY HUMAN BEINGS

MARTHA ROGERS

THEORY OF UNITARY

 HUMAN BEINGS

ABOUT:

MARTHA ELIZABETH ROGERS

Martha Elizabeth Rogers (May 12, 1914 – March 13, 1994) was an American nurse, researcher, theorist, and author. While professor of nursing at New York University, Rogers developed the "Science of Unitary Human Beings", a body of ideas that she described in her book An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing.

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She was born in Dallas, Texas, the oldest of four children of Bruce Taylor Rogers and Lucy Mulholland Keener Rogers. She began college at the University of Tennessee, studying pre-med (1931-1933) and withdrew due to pressure that medicine was an unsuitable career for a woman. She received a diploma from the Knoxville General Hospital School of Nursing in 1936. The following year she received an undergraduate degree in public health nursing at George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee. She received an M.A.in public health nursing from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1945, an M.P.H. in 1952 and a Sc.D. in 1954, both from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

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She specialized in public health nursing, working in Michigan, Connecticut, and Arizona, where she established the Visiting Nurse Service of Phoenix, Arizona. Between 1952 and 1975, she was Professor and Head of the Division of Nursing at New York University; she became Professor Emeritus in 1979.

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Rogers died March 13, 1994, and was buried in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1996, she was posthumously inducted into the American Nurses Association's Hall of Fame.

Martha Elizabeth Rogers (May 12, 1914 – March 13, 1994) was an American nurse, researcher, theorist, and author. While professor of nursing at New York University, Rogers developed the "Science of Unitary Human Beings", a body of ideas that she described in her book An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing.

​

She was born in Dallas, Texas, the oldest of four children of Bruce Taylor Rogers and Lucy Mulholland Keener Rogers. She began college at the University of Tennessee, studying pre-med (1931-1933) and withdrew due to pressure that medicine was an unsuitable career for a woman. She received a diploma from the Knoxville General Hospital School of Nursing in 1936. The following year she received an undergraduate degree in public health nursing at George Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee. She received an M.A.in public health nursing from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1945, an M.P.H. in 1952 and a Sc.D. in 1954, both from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

​

She specialized in public health nursing, working in Michigan, Connecticut, and Arizona, where she established the Visiting Nurse Service of Phoenix, Arizona. Between 1952 and 1975, she was Professor and Head of the Division of Nursing at New York University; she became Professor Emeritus in 1979.

​

Rogers died March 13, 1994, and was buried in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1996, she was posthumously inducted into the American Nurses Association's Hall of Fame.

ROGER'S THEORY AND NURSING 

METAPARADIGM 

         PERSON

       a unitary human being is open systems which continuously interact with environment. A person cannot be viewed as parts, it should be considered as a whole.  

ENVIRONMENT

It includes the entire energy field other than a person. These energy fields irreducible, not limited by space and time, identified by its pattern and organization. 

HEALTH

Not clearly defined by Roger. It is determined by the interaction between energy fields i.e human and environment. Bad Interaction or misplacing of the energy leads to illness. 

NURSING

Is both science and art. It constantly maintains the energy field which is conducive to patient. Nursing action directs the interaction of person and environment to maximize health potential. 

THE "slinky"

Imagine the life process moving along the “Slinky” spirals with the human field occupying space along the spiral and extending out in all directions from any given location along a spiral. Each turn of the spiral exemplifies the rhythmical nature of life, while distortions of the spiral portray deviations from nature’s regularities. Variations in the speed of change through time may be perceived by narrowing or widening the distance between spirals.

The assumptions of Rogers’ Theory of Unitary Human Beings are as follows:

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(1) Man is a unified whole possessing his own integrity and manifesting characteristics that are more than and different from the sum of his parts.

(2) Man and environment are continuously exchanging matter and energy with one another.

(3) The life process evolves irreversibly and unidirectionally along the space-time continuum.

(4) Pattern and organization identify man and reflect his innovative wholeness. 

(5) Man is characterized by the capacity for abstraction and imagery, language and thought, sensation and emotion.

Article 1:

The work of Martha Rogers has been an important contribution to the nursing community both for its reframing of the scope of the work being done and for its emphasis on scientific processes needed to address the problems facing nursing. It emphasizes both the importance of the individual as well as the connections that individual has to the environment and society as a whole. It presents human beings as being more than the sum of their whole. At the same time, Rogers’s theory advocates for an empirical approach to the problems facing nursing. Rogers’s work can be supplemented by Neuman’s when addressing nursing burnout. This creates a clear chain of action that must be accomplished to maintain a culture of safety that starts with identifying nurses as a part of the clinical environment and ends with reducing stressors to patients that would result from nursing burnout.

Article 2:

Rogers Nursing Science emerged in the United States as a major breakthrough in nursing knowledge, a source from which a wealth of benefits can be derived on an immediate and practical level, and from which nursing research can continue to draw inspiration. One of the central tenets of Rogerian Science is the concept of unitary view of the human being. One may adopt this concept as a metaphor for nursing itself, by considering the notion of nursing as a whole, that it is more than the sum of its parts, formed from different and innumerable realities, with an energy that is in continuous motion, a capacity for influencing others’ fields, a sensitivity to be influenced in turn by the energy that conveys the perspective of nursing itself. Rogers highlighted that the goal of nursing is to promote health on the grounds of a positive and optimistic approach related to the model of the Unitary Human Being (UHB), placing nurses right in the centre of the healthcare system.

In order to take a reality check on the impact of the model outside the context of North American nursing, where it was born (from Rogers’ studies when based at New York University), the present article presents a summary of the available literature on Rogers’ ideas that has been published in Spanish as well as in various other European languages (other than English). The result for Spanish is discussed in the context of the present authors’ nursing experience. A selection of some of the important work published in English is also provided—albeit a non-exhaustive list of (Rogerian) literature—as a starting point for those interested in exploring Rogers’ model with a view to its incorporation in university study in Spain and elsewhere.

REFERENCE:

Applying the Nursing Theory of Martha Rogers. (2017, November 24) Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/academia/Applying-the-Nursing-Theory-of-Martha-Rogers

The Impact of Martha Rogers' Nursing Science in Spain. (2015, July 22) Retrieved from https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-impact-of-martha-rogers-nursing-science-in-spain-2167-1168-1000283.php?aid=63107

Martha E. Rogers (2018, June 15) Retrieved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_E._Rogers

The Science of Unitary and Irreducible Human Beings (2011) Retrieved from http://nursingtheories.weebly.com/martha-rogers.html

BY:

COSTALES, Kristine May S.
LOYOLA, Hennaleigh R.