The pattern that connects

Abstract

Debate over whether nursing is an art or a science culminates in the need for integration of the two as a guide to practice. The historical development of nursing knowledge reveals a spectrum of evolution from physical care to interpersonal relationships to an integrative approach and, most recently, to a unitary perspective. The author proposes pattern as the integrating factor that eliminates the dichotomies of traditional art and science and transforms nursing knowledge to a higher dimension that includes and transcends the knowledge that has gone before. Nursing praxis is presented as integrated theory-research-practice that is consistent with a unitary perspective.