Contributor – Rudolf Cymorr Kirby Martinez, PhD, MA, RN,
CGNC, CNE, WWCC, HWNC-BC,
AHN-BC, SGAHN, FFNMRCSI

I am a nurse educator from the Philippines who has been in academia for at least 12 years. I started in nursing education at the baccalaureate level, handling students in Community Health Nursing clinical rotation. During this time, I was teaching nursing the way I was taught — theory-less. Since my PhD leans more toward anthropology than nursing, my students were more oriented toward anthropological theories than nursing theories during my preceptorship.

Early on I realized that the knowledge from sciences ancillary to nursing seemed more interesting to them than those from our own discipline. Although nursing theories were discussed in the BSN program, these were often taught through rote memorization rather than deep understanding of their essence. For example, the patterns of knowing, the nature of nursing as profession and discipline, as well as the unique perspective of nursing were given less emphasis. The majority of the nursing theories covered in our curriculum were from the Global North, with very few models from Filipino authors. However, these local nursing models did not fully enunciate the distinct Filipino culture, philosophy and structure of caring; instead, they were largely grounded in Western perspectives, albeit written by Filipinos.

For many of my fellow Filipino nurse educators, my previous context remains their current reality: Filipino nursing students often prefer non-nursing theories (such as those of Freud, Maslow, or Kübler-Ross) over nursing theories to ground their practice, and in the process fragmenting their professional identity. This may explain why many Filipino nurses can perform procedures attributed to nursing but struggle to articulate their unique contribution to the betterment of persons and society as a whole. Their nursing appears more performative than lived. And because their professional role and identity are not clearly defined, they become prone to epistemic trespassing—expressing knowledge from another discipline and falsely attributing it as nursing.

This context and these concerns were among the reasons why we developed NurCaM (Nursing Situation as Caring Moment) Theory. I say “we” because the concepts central to NurCaM have long existed and been lived by Filipinos, even before I wove them into a meaningful tapestry for everybody to appreciate and use as necessary.

NurCaM provides answers to questions persistently asked by Filipino nurses in their quest to understand themselves as professionals: What is the unique contribution of nursing to interprofessional collaborative care? What actions constitute nursing? What makes nursing Filipino and caring? And how do we do nursing?

NurCaM posits that “Intentionally ensuring that nursing situations with our kapwa are consistently appreciated as caring moments fosters their deliberate self-empowerment by championing their kaginhawahan, to be fully lived.” With this, co-creating caring moments with persons is the unique contribution of nursing; actions that ensure the elements of caring moments are present constitute nursing actions; and championing the kaginhawahan (the collective aspiration of Filipinos where there is a symphony of health, wellness, and relational harmony, and the full flourishing of human potential) of our kapwa (“the self-in-the-other,” emphasizing our shared humanity) is the intent and goal of Filipino nursing (Martinez, 2024, 2025, 2026). The Holistic Nursing Practice (HolNurP) Model is the default process of nursing within NurCaM, which will be further explored in another blog post.

Prior to the formal publication of NurCaM, we experienced difficulty in functionally integrating caring and nursing theories into our practice as nurse educators and carers. Although there have been continual efforts put in place to improve, the lack of a structure to support what we want to impart to our students makes it challenging. NurCaM offers one possible structure. For example, my school, San Beda University College of Nursing, uses NurCaM as one of the foundational nursing theories for its caring-based BSN curriculum, first of its kind in the Philippines. NurCaM grounds the College vision-mission, curriculum design, course content, teaching-learning activities, as well as assessment methodologies. NurCaM has also been adopted by other schools of nursing, health facilities and nursing organizations to ground their practice ensuring that it is Filipino in orientation. The continued utilization, critique and presentations of NurCaM across various organizations and audiences allows it to continue living, remain dynamic and be actively evolving. NurCaM continues to be refined not to be different from nursing theories from the Global North nor to distance itself from the global discourse of nursing, but to become more relevant and relatable to the community it primarily meant to serve: The Philippines and Filipino Nursing.

NurCaM is intended to be one of the initial steps in making nursing theories more accessible and palatable for the current generation of nurses, especially Filipinos, and in the process contribute to the decolonization of how nursing is practiced and taught in a country that experienced over 300 years of direct colonization and continues to be shaped by its indirect forms (Cleofas, 2024).

I might have already retired from nursing by the time NurCaM makes a significant impact on the original concern it was meant to address. Although the seed that is NurCaM has already been planted, it will take a community for it to fully flourish into a tree whose shade will better serve humanity.

As a nurse, what seed have you planted or have chosen to nurture until it blooms?

References

Cleofas, Jerome Visperas (2024, November 5). Decoloniality, Pluriversality, and the Pluriverse of Nursologies. Nursology. https://nursology.net/2024/11/05/decoloniality-pluriversality-and-the-pluriverse-of-nursologies/

Martinez, R. C. K. P. (2024). Nursing-situation-as-caring-moment (NurCaM): A Filipino value-grounded theory of nursing. Philippine Nurses Association, Inc.; San Beda University, College of Nursing. https://osf.io/download/7yjxn/

Martinez, Rudolf Cymorr Kirby (2025, October 17). Nursing-Situation-as-Caring-Moment: A Filipino Value-Grounded Theory of Nursing in 2 minutes (Educational Video). Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1aQaCYDAs7/

Martinez, Rudolf Cymorr Kirby (2025, November 17). Musing of a Nursologist: Komunidad, Kapwa, Kaginhawahan at Pakikiramdam: Values as Philosophy of Filipino Caring (Short Essay). Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17hS87ujJg/

Martinez, Rudolf Cymorr Kirby (2026). Nursing situation as caring moment (NurCaM): A Filipino value-grounded theory of nursing. Nursology. https://nursology.net/nurse-theories/nursing-situation-as-caring-moment-nurcam-a-filipino-value-grounded-theory-of-nursing/

About Rudolf Cymorr Kirby Martinez

Rudolf Cymorr Kirby P. Martinez is a Filipino nursologist, caring science scholar, and Kabaybay (Filipino Nurse Coach). He is the author of The Nursing Situation as Caring Moment Theory: A Filipino Value Based Theory of Nursing and The Filipino Caring Philosophy and Structure: A Life Nurturing System.

He is a Full Professor at the San Beda University College of Nursing and also teaches part time in the graduate programs of Arellano University–Florentino Cayco Memorial School, Graduate School of Nursing, and Holy Angel University–School of Nursing and Allied Medical Sciences. He serves as the Chairperson of the Philippine Nurses Association Department of Nursing Education and is the PNA representative to the Commission on Higher Education–Technical Panel for Nursing (2025–2028). Prior to transitioning to academia, he worked as a pediatric nurse in various capacities, including school nurse, clinic nurse, and staff nurse at the largest pediatric hospital in the Philippines.

Dr. Martinez is a scholar of the Global Academy of Holistic Nursing, a Wisdom of the Whole Certified Coach, and a Health and Wellness Nurse Coach–Board Certified. He is also an Advanced Holistic Nurse–Board Certified, a Certified Nurse Educator, a Certified Global Nurse Consultant, a Distinguished Fellow of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and a regular member of the Department of Science and Technology–National Research Council of the Philippines.

His current advocacy focuses on the decolonization of Philippine nursing education and practice through the integration of caring science and indigenous, traditional, and folkloric health healing practices, as well as Filipino values and virtues, into nursing curricula and clinical practice.