| Learning Objective #1: Discuss the difference between the art and science of nursing | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify ways to express the art of nursing in a nursing practice |
When I was a new nursing faculty, I was very content driven. I spent the majority of class reviewing alterations in health and the associated medical and nursing interventions. As the years passed, I began to worry that my students were missing the “big picture”. The students knew pathophysiology and became proficient at assessment and the techniques involved in caring for their clients but I feared that the art of nursing was somehow being lost. When I would ask “how did this illness impact your client and their family?” my students would either reiterate the pathology and related medical and nursing care or (more often) would give me a blank look. They were not comprehending the simple fact that their patients were individuals with families and lives apart from their illness and that they should not be defined by their disease. In an attempt to emphasize the art of nursing, I developed a creative project assignment. For this project the students are required to pick a “cyber” client from the “Cancer Kids” website. They are then asked to try to “feel” how the child’s illness has affected his/her life and the life of their family. The student must find some way to creatively express this “feeling” so that it can be demonstrated/described to their classmates. Students have created photographs, short stories, poems, poster presentations, video presentations, books, puzzles, quilts, games, slide presentations, songs and experiential demonstrations for their projects. Some of the projects that I will share with you have made me laugh, many have made me cry and all have left me in awe of the capacity that student’s have to depict that human element that is so critical to include in nursing care.
Back to The Nurse-Patient Relationship: Issues and Answers
Back to 37th Biennial Convention - Clinical Sessions
Sigma Theta Tau International