INTRODUCING NURSOLOGY.NET
For this issue of Advances in Nursing Science (ANS), we called for articles that address the focus of the discipline-a call issued in part to acknowledge about 50 years since a series of conferences that initiated widespread and serious exploration of the nature, the focus, and the future directions for the development of nursing science and nursing as a discipline. This issue of the journal is appearing a few weeks prior to the Case Western Reserve conference on Nursing Theory: "A 50-Year Perspective, Past and Future" and includes several articles that emerged from the planning for this conference (see the Guest Editorial).
Significantly, the issue appears within months of the founding of Nursology.net (https://nursology.net/)-a nurse-led, nurse-developed Web site providing the most current and accurate information about nursing discipline-specific knowledge that advances human betterment globally. This project is guided by the following assumptions and principles:
* Nursology is a distinct discipline that is vital to the health and well-being of people worldwide, our families, communities, and nations.
* Nursology is multidimensional, bringing together a variety of theoretic and philosophical perspectives, each of which makes a significant contribution to the distinct nature of the discipline as a whole.
* Nursology is an autonomous discipline based on values and ideals that bring a unique and necessary dimension to health care.
* Nursology intersects with other health care disciplines, draws on knowledge from other disciplines, and functions in cooperation and collaboration with other disciplines but remains distinct and autonomous because of particular perspectives arising from the experience of caring for those who are sick or injured and from the experience of promoting health and well-being for individuals, families, communities, and the environments in which they reside (from https://nursology.net/about/).
These assumptions reflect perspectives that shape the focus on the discipline, but they also suggest legitimate issues that deserve serious and extensive discussion-not to achieve consensus but to appreciate the range of possibilities and diversities that inform and shape our discipline, and each of us as nursologists. It is my hope that ANS readers will explore Nursology.net and follow the blog and that the articles in this issue will promote thoughtful consideration of the foundations that inform the focus of the discipline as we chart our path forward.
-Peggy L. Chinn, PhD, RN, FAAN
Editor