1. What was the driving force?
Father involved in philosophy
Learned there were different ways to look at any one situation.
Mother’s illness with ALS
Became interested in Nursing as a profession
2 key realizations
Disease/illness does not define a person
Time, movement and space interrelated with health and quality of relationships.
Professor Marie Buckley
Encouraged independent Nursing Practice
Professor Dorothy Hocker
Power of Nursing Presence
Martha Rogers’ Science of Unitary Human Beings
Enhanced ability to see whole

2. Stage of Knowledge Development
Doctoral at NYU with Martha Rogers
Study movement, time and space as parameters of health; positivist scientific paradigm.
Theoretical insights evolved as she continued to learn Martha Rogers ‘ work.
Health and illness are manifestations of a greater whole
Person, family and environment are interconnected as a unitary whole.
1978 Toward a Theory of Health - presentation at Nursing Theory Conference In New York City.
1984 Nurse Theorist at University of Minnesota.
Pattern Recognition Nursing Process - Collaboration with Richard Cowling, Case Western, and Jim Vail, Army Nurse Corps.
Published 2 editions of “Health as Expanding Consciousness”
Published “Transforming Presence: The Difference that Nursing Makes”; “Giving Voice to What we Know: Margaret Newman’s Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness in Nursing Practice, Research and Education”.

3. Health Movement 1970 Women’s Health Movement
Beginning of a power shift in women’s health
Women wanted control of their own bodies
1980 Community Mental Health Movement
Started in 1900’s
Aimed at improving government mental health services
Insanity Defense
People with mental problems could stay in their norml communities with little hospitalizations

4. Economic/Political Influences on Health
Government concerned with rising costs of healthcare because of Medicare and Medicaid
Proposal for a health cost strategy to slow inflation rates were first made in 1970.
Expand health maintenance organization (HMO’s)
Regulate hospital physician fees with federal controls if a state failed to act;
Higher cost sharing in private insurance
1974 American Congressional Registration, National Health Planning and resources development Act
No equal access to affordable healthcare
Use of Federal Funds in the healthcare system added to increase in inflation rates
No uniform methods of healthcare
Unequal distribution of healthcare facilities
Lack of basic knowledge regarding personal healthcare
Years later found health planning was ineffective at constraining how much money was spent leading to rise in health costs.

5. References
Smith, M. E. (2010). Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice, Third Edition. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis Company.
Young, C. K. (n.d.). Retrieved June 23, 2011, from