Joyce J. Fitzpatrick

Narrative Nursing - What Does it Mean to be a Professional Nurse

A nursing narrative note is a type of nursing documentation used to provide clear, detailed information about a patient. A narrative note is written in paragraph form and tells a story, if you will, about the patient, the care being received, response to treatment, and any interventions or education provided. Narrative notes allow for more detailed descriptions of health conditions and concerns, which means you have greater freedom when it comes to painting a representative picture of a patient’s health. You can communicate their thoughts and feelings, as well as your own professional judgments. The format of the book will cover the Narrative Nursing workshop format that has been instituted over the years with nurses from a range of organizations. Each nurse will follow an outline of storytelling and select one meaningful nurse-patient, nurse-colleague, or nurse-leader encounter to present as a story to share with other nurses. Each chapter contains stories from nurses at all levels of development, from the novice (student nurse) to the expert nurse and nurse leader. The overall purpose is to illustrate, in a structured format, the impact of nursing care provided to individuals, families, and communities. The storytelling process that will be used includes the key techniques of storytelling: namely, engaging the audience, describing the scene, building tension, focusing on what is important, keeping the flow logical, and making the story conclusive, particularly in light of the lessons learned from the story. Each story will be accompanied by analysis and commentary from the two primary authors, remarking on the meaningfulness of the story, lessons learned, and lessons for other nurses. Each story will be unique, but there will be conclusions drawn at the end of each story, and there will also be an introductory chapter and a final chapter written by the primary authors to introduce the value of story-telling and in the final chapter to synthesize lessons learned. A main feature of this book is that the stories will allow the reader to identify personal and professional moral and ethical principles confronted by clinical nurses and nurse leaders at all levels. The book also ties the narratives to sample NCLEX-RN questions to help the student reader use the narrative framework as they prepare for the licensure exam.