Feeling like a nurse: re-calling the spirit of nursing.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the essential meaning of being a nurse.


METHODS
Nine registered nurses were each asked to write a story of a time when they felt like a nurse. Analysis was informed by Heideggerian hermeneutic philosophy, seeking to reveal the phenomenon of "feeling like a nurse."


METHODS
As part of a workshop on phenomenological methodology, participants were invited to reflect on a personal experience of feeling like a nurse. These documents were analyzed according to the method of van Manen. Participants were kept informed throughout each phase.


RESULTS
Feelings announce primordial meaning of feeling like a nurse. Nurses experience the call as mood attuned by an anxiety that creates possibilities for authentic caring. It is a way of being that encompasses watching and acting, doing to and caring for, and taking over and giving back. Moreover, it is after the encounter that the essential meaning is more clearly revealed. We argue that there is value in continuing to question the meaning of "being a nurse." Amid a complex and increasingly technological world, this calls the profession to remember the human encounter at the heart of all nursing.
Spence
Deborah
D
Division of Health Care Practice, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Smythe
Elizabeth
E
D000328:Adult; D000739:Anecdotes as Topic; D002321:Career Choice; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009520:New Zealand; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing