Nurses as Patients: the Stories of Two Woman Nurse Educators as Recipients of Nursing Care

In this research two nurse-patients have engaged in a conversation about their experience of ‘being nursed’. The project sets out to address the following questions: How might our experiences as nurses who have been hospitalised be drawn upon to influence positive changes in nursing practice? What effect might our experiences of hospitalisation have on us as nurses and on our nursing practice? The study utilises narrative as inquiry and the method of story telling and auto/biography to tell the stories of Maria (a pseudonym) and myself, the researcher. This interpretive research has been informed by the feminist process and sits within a postmodern framework. Maria’s stories were audio taped and transcribed before being prepared for analysis using ‘core story creation’, and the process of 'emplotment' (Emden, 1998b). My reflective topical autobiographical narrative was constructed through the processes described by Johnstone (1999). Three distinct qualities emerged from both of our experiences. The first, ‘knowing as nurse-patient’ contains the three sub themes of ‘having knowledge’, ‘expectations of being nursed’, and ‘knowledge gained’. The second distinct quality ‘being nursed’ contains the two sub themes of ‘feeling safe and cared for’ and ‘presencing’; and the third ‘not being nursed’ contains the four sub themes ‘feeling vulnerable’, ‘invisibility of nurses’, ‘getting out’ and ‘feeling let down’. The sub theme ‘getting out’ includes three additional sub themes of ‘wanting to get out and not wanting to be there’, ‘leaving and the need for closure’ and ‘not wanting to go back’, This study on nurse-patients receiving nursing care will be useful for nurse educators, students of nursing, and nurse clinicians. Nursing does make a difference to patient care. For patients to receive therapeutic care new graduate nurses must be preceptored/mentored by experienced nurses in supportive programmes. Suggestions for further research have been identified