"The focus of the discipline of nursing": A critique and extension

Influential writings in nursing tend to align with views held and privileged in the scientific community. By taking this stance nurses resist changes that would advance the discipline and give voice and visibility to marginalized people in society who seek the socially relevant service that nursing purports to offer. The difficulty stems not only from the failure to question the dominance of particular approaches for knowledge generation over others, but also from the failure to recognize that our questions are constructed to support rather than to challenge existing knowledge. Revisioning a pivotal article--"The focus of the discipline of nursing"--enhances its usefulness for nursing curricula.