MUTATION AND VIRUS THEORIES OF HUMAN CANCERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT IN NURSING EDUCATION (MUTATION THEORY, VIRUS THEORY).
Contributors: Temple University.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 128
Subjects: Health Sciences, Education.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The problem of this study was to describe the mutation theory of human cancers by Theodor Boveri and the virus theory by Amedee Borrel. The purpose of the study was to derive implications for program development in oncology nursing education.

The current status of oncology nursing education was examined. No consistent bases or sources for the description of subject matters which characterize oncology nursing education were found. The lack of descriptions of a body of knowledge to inform oncology nursing education led to the identification and description of competing points of view about how cancer arises in human beings: the mutation theory, by Boveri, and the virus theory, by Borrel.

From the description of these seminal theories, it was concluded that the mutation theory and the virus theory are necessary for oncology nursing education but remain incomplete theories in accounting for all phenomena of human cancers.

It is the premise of this study that nursing education informs nursing practice and nursing practice assesses the claims of nursing education. Moreover, because nursing adheres to a bio-psycho-social orientation, program development in oncology nursing education must account for the description of the biologic, the psychologic, and the sociologic. Observation which accounts for the bio-psycho-social perspective of nursing may contribute to the generation of oncology nursing theory that informs nursing education.

Program development must account for observation of what is known and unknown about how cancer affects human beings. Boveri and Borrel, as described in this study, are the seminal sources of the biologic considerations of human cancers. Comparable seminal sources must be identified for the description of the psycho-social responses of the compromised human organism. If and only if there is identification and description of subject matters that constrain oncology nursing education, can there be any expectation of systematic program development for oncology nursing education.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-05, Section: B, page: 2231.

Thesis (ED.D.)--TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, 1992.

School code: 0225.