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CHAPTER 14 Rosemarie Rizzo Parse’s Human Becoming School of Thought 193

(Parse, 2004), and the Human Becoming
Synergistic Collaborating Leadership Model (Parse,
in press) are being disseminated and utilized in
several settings.
For example, in Toronto, Sunnybrook, and
Women’s College Health Science Centre’s multidis-
ciplinary standards of care arise from the beliefs
and values of the Human Becoming School of
Thought. University Health Network, also in
Toronto, Canada, is in the process of conducting an
18-month study (Bournes & Ferguson-Paré, 2004)
to evaluate implementation of human becoming as
a guide to nursing practice on a unit where they are
also evaluating the implementation of a staffing
model in which registered nurses are spending 80
percent of their time in direct patient care and 20
percent of their time on professional development
(80/20 model). It is believed that learning to use the
human becoming theory in practice will enhance
nurses’ satisfaction and be responsive to health-care
recipients’ call for patient-centered care (Bournes,
2002b). The addition of the 80/20 nurse staffing
model is to address issues raised in the nurse reten-
tion literature indicating that nurses want profes-
sional development opportunities, time to be
involved in developing professional practice and re-
search initiatives, demonstrated commitment and
support from nurse leaders, and reductions in
workload. There are other health centers through-
out the world that have Human Becoming as a
guide to health care (see, for example, the “Scholarly
Dialogue” column in Nursing Science Quarterly,
volume 17, numbers 3 and 4).
In South Dakota, a parish nursing model was
built on the principles of human becoming to guide
nursing practice at the First Presbyterian Church in
Sioux Falls (Bunkers, Michaels, & Ethridge, 1997;
Bunkers & Putnam, 1995). Also, the Board of
Nursing of South Dakota has adopted a decisioning
model based on the human becoming school of
thought (Damgaard & Bunkers, 1998). Augustana
College (in Sioux Falls) has human becoming as
one central focus of the curricula for the baccalau-
reate and master’s programs. It is the basis of
Augustana’s Health Action Model for Partnership
in Community (Bunkers, Nelson, Leuning, Crane,
& Josephson, 1999).
A research project on the lived experience of
hope was conducted using the Parse method, with
participants from Australia, Canada, Finland, Italy,
Japan, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and
the United States. The findings from these studies

and the stories of the participants are published in

the book Hope: An International Human Becoming

Perspective (Parse, 1999). Collaborating research

projects also have been published on feeling very

tired (Baumann, 2003; Huch & Bournes, 2003;

Parse, 2003b).

Approximately 300 participants subscribe to

Parse-L, an e-mail listserv where Parse scholars

share ideas. There is a Parse home page on the

World Wide Web that is updated regularly. Each

year, most of the 100 or more members of the

International Consortium of Parse Scholars meet

in Canada for a weekend immersion in human be-

coming research and practice. Members of the con-

sortium have prepared a set of teaching modules

(Pilkington & Jonas-Simpson, 1996) and a video

recording (International Consortium of Parse

Scholars, 1996) of Parse nurses in true presence

with persons in different settings. Parse scholars

present lectures and symposia regularly at interna-

tional forums.

The Institute of Human Becoming

The Institute of Human Becoming, founded in

1992, was created to offer interested nurses and

others the opportunity to study, with the au-

thor, the ontological, epistemological, and

methodological aspects of the human becom-

ing school of thought. Toward that goal, the in-

stitute offers regular sessions devoted to the

study of the ontology and the research and

practice methodologies. There are also sessions

on teaching-learning, leading-following, com-

munity, and family. All of the sessions have as

their goal the understanding of the meaning of

the human-universe-health process from a

human becoming perspective.

Through the efforts of Parse scholars, the

Human Becoming School of Thought will

continue to emerge as a major force in the

twenty-first century evolution of nursing sci-

ence. Knowledge gained from the basic re-

search studies will continue to be synthesized

to further explicate the meaning of lived ex-

periences. The findings from applied research

projects related to fostering understanding of