Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book utilises the assertion ‘pain is what the patient says it is’ as a vehicle to explore complex questions around the role professional values/norms and professionalism play for university-based nurse educators in steering what is and is not taught to students. It outlines and argues for naturalistic or moral realism. The book then proposes that nurse educators in the United States and elsewhere fail to ‘develop ethically astute nurses who can practice in accord with the goals, perspectives and reason-for-being of the profession’. It also proposes that neophyte nurse researchers are directed by educators and scholars to engage in ill-thought through and intellectually shallow metaphysical musing. Exploring complexity from a hermeneutical and therefore pluralistic vantage, the book tackles the problem of ‘Making Sense in Nursing Education’.