Another Twist on the Double Helix: Research and Practice

Abstract

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. The first line of this very familiar paragraph by Dickens (Baldwin, 1919, p.49) from his book, A Tale of Two Cities, has been repeating itself in my brain now for about six months. After considerable thought, I decided to make the analysis of why this passage seems so relevant, the focus of my presentation. During these six months I have, on the one hand, experienced tremendous optimism, excitement and a sense of endless possibilities; on the other, a sense of despair, hopelessness and helplessness about nursing. My excitement is generated by the current opportunities for nursing research that have never been available to us before. My despair is found in the practice environment and the profound unhappiness expressed by many of our current practitioners of nursing who work in hospitals in Toronto. This disequilibrium, I believe, has serious implications for the continued development of nursing research, because of the inextricable relationship between nursing research and nursing practice. Fawcett (1978) introduced the idea of the double helix in her paper on the relationship between research and theory. I think a similar double helix exists between research and practice and hence the title of my presentation.