Conclusion
Most nurses have been exposed to Watson’s caring the- ory, but many are not aware of the ethics of care theory development that began in moral psychology with the work of Gilligan (1982). Care is crucial for human devel- opment, and is first and foremost aimed at physical needs. Caring is necessary on the biological level for infants to survive, but also for the patient who is depend- ent at end of life. Care ethics stem from the idea that care is basic to human existence. Caring weaves people into a network of relationships (Vanlaere & Gastmans, 2011).
However, when a person chooses to be a nurse, he or she has made a moral commitment to care for all patients. Such a decision to care is not to taken lightly, as it reflects this statement in the Code of Ethics for Nurses: “The nurse respects the worth, dignity and rights of all human beings irrespective of the nature of the health problem” (ANA, 2001, p. 7). Caring is required if a patient, such as Mr. Jones, has health consequences due to lack of adherence to a treatment plan for his diabetes and alcoholism. Putting aside personal biases and preju- dices to implement Tronto’s (1993) four phases of caring is not easy. The four dimensions of care suggest “good care demands more than just good Intention; good care...is a practice of combining activities, attitudes, and knowledge of the situation” (Gastmans, 2006, p. 137). Care can be considered simply an ethical task and thus a burden of one more thing to do, or it can be considered a commitment to attending to and becoming enthusias- tically involved in the patient’s needs.