Welcome to Nursing EDge Unscripted saga as we use stories to connect the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. As we celebrate the NLN Year of the Nurse Educator, we pay tribute to extraordinary nurses who have made significant contributions to nursing education. We dive into the stories of nurse educators who recognized in need, challenged traditional customs, and influenced
transformative change. Welcome to part two of our tribute to Dr. Patricia Benner, whose research as described in her book, "From Novice to Expert: Excellence and Power in Clinical Nursing Practice," published in book format in 1984, hypothesized that the development of knowledge in applied disciplines, such as medicine and nursing, is composed of the extension of practical knowledge ("know how") through research and the understanding of the "know how" of clinical
experience. This new thinking was revolutionary and spurred new perspectives about how nurses practice, and how educators teach a practice. During her research which generated the novice to expert model, Dr. Benner discovered that the nurses identified in the study as experts offered her glimpses of the power that resides in caring. She identified that their relationships with patients were highly contextual because caring
is local, specific, and individual. She concluded that almost no nursing intervention will work if the nurse-patient relationship is not based on mutual respect and genuine caring. In 1996 Dr. Benner, together with Dr. Christine Tanner and Dr. Catherine Chesla, expanded her research into expert caring practices, analyzing and examining the nature of clinical
knowledge and clinical judgment. The publication, "Expertise in Nursing Practice," reported on interviews and observe the practice of 130 hospital-based nurses over a six-year period, collecting hundreds of narratives from which they refined and deepened their explanation of the stages of clinical skill acquisition and the components of expert caring practices.
A second edition of the book was published in 2009, titled "Expertise in Nursing Practice: Caring, Clinical Judgment, and Ethics," with additional narratives .
Their research provided evidence that technology and science alone cannot address relational and interpersonal responsibilities, discernment, and situated possibilities, all of which are required when caring for persons who are made vulnerable due to illness, stress, and injury. Practice disciplines use technology, science, and theory, but in the end, they must use knowledge and function in
practical situations. At the heart of good clinical judgment and clinical wisdom lies experiential learning from particular situations. Dr. Benner, Dr. Tanner, and Dr. Chesla clearly emphasized that their research did not seek to devalue science and technology. Rather, they wrote: Through their work, to promote a new way to think about skilled know-how and ethical comportment is integral to expert caring practices, they opened the door for nurse educators to rethink
pedagogical practices. Again in their words: Today, as nurse educators embrace teaching practices that call for being critical, using narrative to attach meaning to practical experiences, and developing clinical judgment through intentional encounters, we owe a great debt to Dr. Benner and her colleagues. Their innovative and transformative research change forever the way we view practice as knowledge in our understanding of how caring practices become
artful, knowledgeable, and life-saving. Dr. Tanner built on this work to develop the Tanner Clinical
Judgment Model. Dr. Benner's model of how nurses transition from novice to expert, her understanding of knowledge that develops directly from practice, and her work to value science and technology in the context of caring practices, served as a foundation for her groundbreaking research when she led the project Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Nursing Education.
Join us for the next episode of Saga as we further explore Dr. Benner's profound contributions to nursing education through the Carnegie Foundation study, when she guided nurse educators to embrace the nuances of teaching a practice, and continued nursing education's transformative journey to focus on situated learning and thinking like a nurse. And so the saga continues and may our saga continue as we bring to a close this episode of
Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us