Admiring courage: Nurses’ perceptions of caring for patients with cancer

Abstract

This paper details one of the findings of a large phenomenological study into the effects of nurse-patient encounters on clinical learning and practice. Every nurse faces the challenge of caring for a patient with cancer at some point in his or her nursing career. The participants, 392 nurses, were asked to provide an account of a care episode from their practice. These narrative/clinical exemplars were for a patient with a diagnosis of cancer and participants were asked to discuss the impact this encounter had on clinical learning and clinical practice. Each day nurses work through the daily grind of the job and occasionally encounter a person, who inspires them, someone they admire because of their courage. Responses from the participants identified a number of such people. Nurses used powerful language, brave, strong, courageous, to describe these patients. The diagnosis of cancer is a daunting prospect and is seen as a challenge physically and emotionally. Participants spoke of their admiration, affection and their sadness when describing the nurse-patient encounters. The life-threatening potential of cancer for the patient and the perception of potential and actual suffering does impact on nurses, their learning and their clinical practice. The struggle against such a daunting adversary places patients diagnosed with cancer in a position to be seen by nurses as people with immense courage. Participants clearly felt the influence of patients' courage, personally and professionally. Many spoke of the inspirational qualities of their patients. Participants detailed learning from the encounters and reflected with great insight on themselves and their practice. The identified nurse-patient encounters were seen to have changed their clinical practice forever.