One of the best presentations I saw at the recent In Sickness and In Health conference (link to conference programme here), was by Trudy Rudge and Amelie Perron titled 'In praise of ignorance? Towards an epistemology of “unknowing” in nursing and health care.' Rudge and Perron are both brilliant critical nursing researchers, and they were previewing some of the ideas in their upcoming book (link). Their argument was in part that although we might like the idea of certainty in our practice, certainty is not always available. More than this, certainty and risk have become hallmarks of good practice, when in fact, our ability to embrace uncertainty is a much more significant feature of … [Read more...] about Why is ignorance so important to clinical practice?
Some meditations on education and intelligence
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” — Aristotle “Education enables you to express assent or dissent in graduated terms.” — William Cory “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” — Robert Frost “To change an opinion without a mental process is the mark of the uneducated.” — Geoffrey Madan “To have doubted one’s own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes “There … [Read more...] about Some meditations on education and intelligence