The cocreating environment: a nexus between classical Chinese and current nursing philosophies.

ALTHOUGH NURSING THEORISTS have incorporated some concepts from Asian wisdom traditions (Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism) into their works, the ways that these traditions might inform Western nursing philosophies, praxis, and ethics is underdeveloped in the professional literature. These differences have been more extensively explored in disciplines other than nursing (psychology, philosophy, and education).1–3 In the scholarly nursing literature, areas of crosscultural fertilization do exist. This literature has focused on explaining Chinese values4,5 and exploring a Chinese understanding of the Western nursing metaparadigm concepts.6–8 Chinese nursing scholars, many of whom have received graduate education in the West, have begun a dialogue in the professional literature that incorporates modifications to Western nursing theories reflecting their Asian contexts and traditions.