untitled

Care, Core, and Cure

Hall enumerated three aspects of the person as pa-
tient: the person, the body, and the disease. These
aspects were envisioned as overlapping circles of
care, core, and cure that influence each other. Hall
stated:

Everyone in the health professions either neglects or

takes into consideration any or all of these, but each

profession, to be a profession, must have an exclusive

area of expertness with which it practices, creates new

practices, new theories and introduces newcomers to

its practice. (1965, p. 4)

She believed that medicine’s responsibility was
the area of pathology and treatment. The area of
person, which, according to Hall, has been sadly
neglected, belongs to a number of professions, in-
cluding psychiatry, social work, and the ministry,
among others. She saw nursing’s expertise as the
area of body as body, and also as influenced by the
other two areas. Hall clearly stated that the focus of
nursing is the provision of intimate bodily care. She
reflected that the public has long recognized this as
belonging exclusively to nursing (Hall, 1958, 1964,
1965). Being expert in the area of body involved
more than simply knowing how to provide inti-
mate bodily care. To be expert, the nurse must
know how to modify the care depending on the
pathology and treatment while considering the pa-
tient’s unique needs and personality.
Based on her view of the person as patient, Hall
conceptualized nursing as having three aspects, and
she delineated the area that is the specific domain
of nursing and those areas that are shared with
other professions (Hall, 1955, 1958, 1964, 1965)
(see Figure 10–1). Hall believed that this model re-
flected the nature of nursing as a professional inter-
personal process. She visualized each of the three
overlapping circles as an “aspect of the nursing
process related to the patient, to the supporting
sciences and to the underlying philosophical dy-
namics” (Hall, 1958, p. 1). The circles overlap and
change in size as the patient progresses through a
medical crisis to the rehabilitative phase of the ill-
ness. In the acute care phase, the cure circle is the
largest. During the evaluation and follow-up phase,
the care circle is predominant. Hall’s framework for
nursing has been described as the Care, Core, and
Cure Model (Chinn & Jacobs, 1987; Marriner-

Tomey, Peskoe, & Gumm, 1989; Stevens-Barnum,

1990).

CARE

Hall suggested that the part of nursing that is

concerned with intimate bodily care (e.g., bathing,

The part of nursing that is concerned with

intimate bodily care (e.g., bathing, feeding,

toileting, positioning, moving, dressing, un-

dressing, and maintaining a healthful envi-

ronment) belongs exclusively to nursing.

Nursing is required when people are not

able to undertake these activities for

themselves.

feeding, toileting, positioning, moving, dressing,

undressing, and maintaining a healthful environ-

ment) belongs exclusively to nursing. Nursing is re-

quired when people are not able to undertake these

activities for themselves. This aspect provided the

opportunity for closeness and required seeing the

process as an interpersonal relationship (Hall,

1958). Hall labeled this aspect “care,” and she iden-

tified knowledge in the natural and biological sci-

ences as foundational to practice. The intent of

CHAPTER 10 Lydia Hall:The Care, Core, and Cure Model and Its Applications 117

FIGURE 10–1 Care, core, and cure model.From Hall, L. (1964,

February). Nursing: What is it? The Canadian Nurse, 60(2), p. 151.

Reproduced with permission from The Canadian Nurse.