Nursing Theorist: Patricia Benner, R.N., P.h.D., FAAN,F.R.C.N. Professor Miller’s Tuesday Clinical Group: Amanda Nather, Bincy John, Brittany Coffin, Kimberly Roe, Julia Kitchings, and Natalie Shelton

Patricia Benner, R.N., P.h.D., FAAN,F.R.C.N. “Knowledge development in a practice discipline consists of extending practical knowledge (know-how) through theory based scientific investigations and through the clinical experience in the practice of that discipline” (Benner, 1984) Patricia Benner is a Professor in the Department of Physiological Nursing in the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Benner received her bachelor's degree in nursing from Pasadena College, her master's degree in medical surgical nursing from the University of California, San Francisco, and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Stress and Coping and Health under the direction of Hubert Dreyfus and Richard Lazarus.

Dr. Benner’s Theory Dr. Benner categorized nursing into 5 levels of capabilities: novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert. She believed experience in the clinical setting is key to nursing because it allows a nurse to continuously expand their knowledge base and to provide holistic, competent care to the patient. Her research was aimed at discovering if there were distinguishable, characteristic differences in the novice’s and expert’s descriptions of the same clinical incident.

Four Domains of Nursing Paradigm:

Client/ Person “The person is a self-interpreting being, that is the person does not come into the world predefined but gets defined in the course of living a life.”- Dr. Benner

Health Dr. Benner focuses on the lived experience of being healthy and being ill. Health is defined as what can be assessed, whereas well being is the human experience of health or wholeness. Well being and being ill are understood as distinct ways of being in the world.

Environment/Situation Benner uses situation rather than environment because situation conveys a social environment with social definition and meanifulness. “To be situated implies that one has a past, present, and future and that all of these aspects….influence the current situation.”- Dr. Benner

Nursing Nursing is described as a caring relationship, an “enabling condition of connection and concern.” -Dr. Benner “Caring is primary because caring sets up the possibility of giving and receiving help.” Nursing is viewed as a caring practice whose science is guided by the moral art and ethics of care and responsibility. Dr. Benner understands that nursing practice as the care and study of the lived experience of health, illness, and disease and the relationships among the three elements.

Nursing theory as a framework for practice… Dr. Benner presented her research in: From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice. Novice, Advance Beginner, Competent, Proficient, and Expert are the different components explained in her research.

Novice The person has no background experience of the situation in which he or she is involved. There is difficulty discerning between relevant and irrelevant aspects of the situation. Generally this level applies to nursing students.

Advanced Beginner The advance beginner stage in the Dreyfus model develops when the person can demonstrate marginally acceptable performance having coped with enough real situations to note, or to have pointed out by mentor, the recurring meaningful components of the situation. Nurses functioning at this level are guided by rules and oriented by task completion.

Competent The competent stage is the most pivotal in clinical learning because the learner must begin to recognize patterns and determine which elements of the situation warrant attention and which can be ignored. The competent nurse devises new rules and reasoning procedures for a plan while applying learned rules for action on the basis of the relevant facts of that situation.

Proficient The performer perceives the information as a whole (total picture) rather than in terms of aspects and performance. Proficient level is a qualitative leap beyond the competent. Nurses at this level demonstrate a new ability to see changing relevance in a situation including the recognition and the implementation of skilled responses to the situation as is it evolves.

Expert Fifth stage of the Dreyfus model is achieved when “the expert performer no longer relies on analytical principals to connect her or his understanding of the situation to an appropriate action

THE RAP!!!….Featuring DJ Bincy and MC Natty   Her name is Dr. Benner and she’s the best…..nursing theorist that you’ll see on ya test…. Her research on her theory teaches us nurses how to think clearly So if you got skills you need more practice Dr. Benner’s theory will help to relax us… She discovered skills for a nurse so we don’t have to put a patients in a hearse   Patricia Benner teaching critical care…. from Bachelors to Master and Ph.D. Pasadena San Fran and Berkeley if your looking for more information holla back on the web at Patricia.com    We’re headed from a novice to an expert…. We’re headed from a novice to an expert…. We’re headed from a novice to an expert…. Learning all the principles and doing the work….. .