title: Excellence in nursing practice.
abstract: One of the most influential pieces of nursing research in recent years has been the work of Benner (1). She uses a variety of techniques to illuminate and illustrate nursing's complexity. In so doing, she has contributed to that growing body of evidence which helps to show why and how nursing is valuable. Benner often cites vignettes of nursing actions to demonstrate particular nursing interventions, and to analyse skills and knowledge the nurse is using. Vignettes are not designed to be comprehensive case studies or to be well-referenced research projects. Nursing Standard is looking to publish a series of these as part of our contribution to help nurses and others consider the value of nursing; the first, which deals with an example from Steve Wright's experience, follows his introduction to the series, which sets out his view of why nursing matters.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007587:Job Description; D009732:Nursing Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards