Storytelling as a Vital Source of Knowledge and Connection in Nursing

I’m not saying that nurses should abandon the quantitative and evidence-based practices that we know have saved many lives. But we should also seek to balance and contextualize this approach through humbly listening to the stories of those we care for. Some of my greatest learning has come from individual client stories and from the rich meaning of their experiences. Stories from clients about their lives can have both a tangible and an intangible effect on the care we provide. A story may create an atmosphere of openness, closeness, and warmth that is both soothing and healing during the most trying times.

Lascaux cave painting/via Wikipedia Lascaux cave painting/via Wikipedia

That’s an excerpt from “He Told Me a Dream of Animals Leaving His Heart,” this month’s Viewpoint essay by Mary Smith, a nurse practitioner and PhD student who writes of caring for a traditional healer as a community health nurse working in a First Nation community in an isolated northern area in Canada.

Smith discusses the many roles storytelling can play: it’s a way to inspire nursing students and explore ethical issues, a source of knowledge about patients and communities, a way to bridge cultural differences, and much more. The piece is direct, short, and written with clarity and insight. Give it a read and see if it gets you thinking or speaks to your own experience.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

 

2017-05-27T10:30:57-04:00December 5th, 2014|Nursing, patient experience|2 Comments
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Resisting the Rising Tide of Parkinson’s

By Barbara Hranilovich. All rights reserved. By Barbara Hranilovich. All rights reserved.

The Reflections essay in the October issue of AJN is called “After-Dinner Talks.” These are talks with a purpose, a form of physical therapy with high stakes. Writes the author, Minter Krotzer, of her husband’s long struggle with Parkinson’s disease: “Hal always says Parkinson’s is not his identity, and it isn’t, as long as he doesn’t let it claim him, or as long as it doesn’t claim us.”

Here’s an excerpt from the beginning:

‘I’d like you two to have a conversation every night after dinner,’ Hal’s speech therapist said to us.

. . . . Over the years, Hal’s Parkinson’s disease has made him difficult to understand. His vocal cords have restricted movement and it is hard for him to make it to the end of a sentence. He often swallows his last words or they just barely come out. Sometimes he sounds like he is underwater—the words indistinguishable from one another, blurry and pitchless.

But read the short essay, which is free. In just one page it manages to say a lot about chronic illness and the constant, conscious effort it can require of both patients and family members; about a clinician’s good advice; about marriage and communication; and about the power of language to keep us human.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor.

Illustration by Barbara Hranilovich; all rights reserved.

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2016-11-21T13:03:45-05:00October 13th, 2014|patient engagement, patient experience, Patients|1 Comment
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The Hospital as Foreign Country

Capture“A Foreign Place,” the February Reflections essay by Barbara Sosman, delves into one patient’s experience of the sometimes inscrutable, sometimes terrifying, sometimes humorous events and encounters in one small corner of a hospital.

Below are the first two paragraphs, but as always, it’s worth clicking through and reading the entire essay (the PDF version is best). This one would be particularly hard to summarize; it takes us to unexpected places.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor

The flow of life and death in a hospital is mysterious, like the sound of a foreign language, and the mysteries that bring us here are profound. Stretched out in an unfamiliar hospital bed, I suppress realities, aware that tomorrow a scalpel will remove an enlarged node for a biopsy. The biopsy will show what I sense, a cellular chaos that threatens my life. Soon my disease will be presented like an offering. What will I do with it?

A room can become a universe and time there an infinity. This room is inhabited by women, of whom I am the youngest by decades  . . .

As always, comments are welcome.

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2016-11-21T13:05:27-05:00February 7th, 2014|nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|0 Comments
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Patient Decisions: When You’re Just Not Up to Making the Call

By Karen Roush, MS, RN, FNP, clinical managing editor

Photo by the author Photo by the author

For most patients and in most clinical situations, decision making is and should be a shared process between the patient and the clinician (and often the family). But there are some cases when we, expert clinicians versed in scientific and experiential knowledge, need to make a decision for the patient—not out of some paternalistic idea of our authority or superiority, but because the patient really wants or needs us to take on that burden.

I was six months pregnant with my second child. The pregnancy had gone smoothly, which was a blessing after having delivered my first child 10 weeks premature following two weeks spent in a tertiary care center. That pregnancy had been problematic from the beginning—early bleeding, and then a hemorrhage at five months, at which time they’d diagnosed me with placenta previa. It was one of those pregnancies where you were thankful for each additional day that brought you closer to the nine-month mark.

But this time, everything was going smoothly—no bleeding or cramps, an active baby that ultrasounds confirmed was growing well . . . until one morning in February, when I started with cramps that progressed to pain and a lot of pressure. An hour later, I was in the labor and […]

2016-11-21T13:05:37-05:00January 17th, 2014|career, nursing perspective, patient engagement, patient experience|1 Comment
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Come Into My Parlor

Amy Getter, MS, RN, lives in Eugene, Oregon, where, in her own words, she “works with people with life-limiting illness who are enrolled in a hospice wherever they consider ‘home.’”

by Ramon Peco/via Flickr by Ramon Peco/via Flickr

I fondly remember becoming acquainted with my first “parlor,” in a 100-year-old home that my family moved into during my teen years. The walls were dressed in faded, peeling, paisley-patterned wallpaper and a tarnished brass chandelier hung from the ceiling. French doors closed it away from the rest of the living area, giving it a slightly mysterious aura. Far-off city lights blinked at me from elongated paned windows. I immediately claimed it as my bedroom.

The word parlor (derived from the verb “to speak”) may have first been used in medieval monasteries. An “outer parlor” was designated for receiving outsiders and attending to business needs and the “inner parlor” was for the monks’ private use. During the mid-19th century, formal parlors evolved and could be found in homes like the one my family lived in.

Weddings, funerals (being “laid out”), and other social events occurred in the parlor. Home businesses emerged (such as “funeral parlors”—offering an option for laying out the deceased in someone else’s home!). In recent years, care of the infirm and preparation of […]

2016-11-21T13:06:28-05:00September 27th, 2013|narratives, nursing perspective, nursing stories, patient experience|3 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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