Two Roads Diverged in a Wood: The Story of Caring Theorist Sister M. Simone Roach

• Author / Creator

  Myers, Margaret E.

• This study introduces the Canadian nursing theorist, Sister Marie Simone Roach. It begins with Roach as the child Eileen, in her large Cape Breton Roman Catholic family and Gaelic culture, and continues as she finishes school, attends St. Joseph's Hospital School of Nursing in Glace Bay, and comes to know the school leaders, the Sisters of Saint Martha. It continues as she enters the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Martha one year after graduating from nursing school. Predominantly, this study focuses on the professional life of Roach, and the development of her theory, The Human Act of Caring. It focuses on her work as a nursing educator, her role in the development of the first Code of Ethics for Nurses in Canada, and other significant sociological, geographical, religious, nursing/medical, and world events that became a context in which she lived and worked. It attempts to clarify how her nursing theory became so well known in the United States while it was largely overlooked in Canada over the more than two decades that caring theory was introduced and furthered in the nursing profession.
  Sister Roach was interviewed extensively, and her fonds were accessed for documents dating back to the 1950s. Nineteen interviews were conducted with individuals known to Roach, and other documents were accessed from archives, libraries, newspapers, journals, websites, and nursing organizations.
  Of special interest is the depth to which her theory has been developed, and how she has brought together aspects of relational ethics, spirituality, and components of caring to inform nursing practice, education and research, and the sheer value of this theory to present and future nurses. Coming to understand the complexity of her work, and her commitment to humanity helped to shed light on aspects of Sister Roach as a person. Likewise, learning of her background, the values to which her family and community subscribed, and the significant influences to which she was exposed, helps to understand Sister Roach the professional.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Relational Ethics
  • Caring theory
  • Sister M. Simone Roach
  • The First Canadian Code of Ethics for Nurses
  • Sisters of Saint Martha
  • Nursing theory
  • Cape Breton Nova Scotia culture
  • Nursing caring theory
  • Nursing education, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish

• Graduation date

  Fall 2013

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R37W67D11

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.