title: Enhancing nursing students' clinical experiences using aesthetics.
abstract: Traditional nursing education is based strongly in empiric knowledge. However, just as important as empiric knowledge is aesthetic knowledge. Nursing involves multiple ways of knowing, and as such, educational institutions have a responsibility to assist students in gaining knowledge in nontraditonal ways. This article describes an assignment implemented in a pediatric course in a baccalaureate nursing program. Books and movies were used in a an undergraduate nursing course to help students gain insight into illness and disability from the client and family perspective. The students in the course were required to reflect on the meaning of the movie/book and the influence the book/movie had on the student. Based on student responses, this assignment was successful in meeting the objectives originally proposed. The books and movies provided a beginning introduction to, and an appreciation for, client and family experiences. Students were helped to understand illness, abuse, disability, and/or death from the client and/or family perspective.
authors.affiliation: University of Mississippi School of Nursing, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.
authors.forename: Ladonna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Northington
authors.forename: Robin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wilkerson
authors.forename: Wanda
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schenk
mesh_terms: D004324:Drama; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate; D004954:Esthetics; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D009040:Motion Pictures; D010371:Pediatric Nursing / Q000193:education*; D014481:United States