REACTION PAPER: 21st Philosophers and their Contributions in Nursing and in Health

In the past years, plenty of people with different professions started to further develop
various branches of science. Which directed to what science became now in this phase. They
gradually unfolded the manifestation and mystery of all the things that were unknown to us
before. Some were enigmatically unanticipated—unimagined that it really does exist, some
were just plainly real—not surprising but could make your brows arch and mouth half-o-
opened.
These discoveries and contribution envelops, primarily, in the field of medicine and
healthcare. Not only the scientists nor doctors are the ones who had contributed to the
development in medicine, but also, philosophers: the persons who are engaged in philosophy,
especially as an academic discipline. Together with their proficiency and expertise in philosophy
which they applied to shine a light to the unknown and covered facts that was mantled with
secrecy.
One of the philosophers who had a great contribution is Carl Elliot, a Professor in
the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Pediatrics, and an affiliate faculty member in
the Department of Philosophy and the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. He had
written many published works that are related to Medicine: White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures
on the Dark Side of Medicine (Beacon Press, in press, 2010), Better than Well: American
Medicine Meets the American Dream (W.W. Norton, 2003), and Slow Cures and Bad
Philosophers: Essays on Wittgenstein, Bioethics and Medicine (Duke University Press, 2001). His
famous book, “White Cloak, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine”, that was
published on 14th of September in the year 2010. The author, Carl Elliot, explored the uncharted
dark side of medicine, unveiled the truth about how various medical companies seek to drive
business in ways that not only don't necessarily improve health, but can even harm it without
the patient knowing about it. His book opened the eyes of his readers regarding this matter,
which is unknown to the readers who knows less and nothing in the field of Medicine.
Emmanuel Levinas, a French Philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for
his work related to Jewish philosophy, existentialism, ethics, phenomenology and ontology. His
work in ethics, “Levinas' Ethics of Caring: Implications and Limits in Nursing”, tackles about
caring as a concept in understanding what is involved in nursing and believe that it is a major
issue in nursing ethics. He described nurse’s moral characteristics that are obligatory are kind
the kind of attributes a nurse must really acquire. These characteristics are discussed on the
basis of taking obligation of the nurse to his or her patient. Which means, the nurse must fill in
the void of the patient’s necessities who is suffering and responds to the patient morally
upright and take responsibility. He emphasized that a nurse could sense passively in responding
the needs of a patient who is suffering, and also the moral responsibility of a nurse to being
encouraged to empathize with the patients.
 And lastly, Hildegard Peplau, an American nurse and philosopher who created the
“Middle-Range Nursing Theory” that is also referred as psychodynamic nursing, which is the
understanding of one’s own behavior.
This theory talks about the interpersonal relations among concepts for the purposes of
describing, explaining, predicting, and/or prescribing. Which helped to revolutionize the
scholarly work of nurses. The theory explains the purpose of nursing is to help others identify
their felt difficulties and that nurses should apply principles of human relations to the problems
that arise at all levels of experience. She further explained the phase of interpersonal process,
roles in situations, and methods for studying nursing. Furthermore, she mentioned that nursing
is therapeutic, an art of healing, assisting an individual who is in need of health care, a process
that involves interaction between two or more individuals with a common goal, to heal. And to
achieve this main goal of the two individuals, they must work together so both become mature
and knowledgeable in the process of interpersonal.

Carl Elliot, Emmanuel Levinas, joyce travelbee, and Hildegard Peplau, are one of the
people who toughly ventured the uphill battle in ascertaining the calculations of undefined and
undiscovered theories. And later on, they published their works to share it to the people just
like you and me. If they did not found these things out, what could have happened to the
medicine field and healthcare? Our healthcare will don’t have a proper care to their self and
also have a a good communication to their patient and their days will be rough because they
are not have a practiced atti