A Japanese Nurse's Self-Awareness of Caring: An Analysis of Biographical Understanding of Caring Experiences

This presentation discusses how a nurse has professionally matured by analyzing the self-awareness stories told by her.  By conducting a life story interview with a nurse, the researcher tries to understand how the nurse has grown from the time of beinga novice nurse through her present situation as a home visiting nurse.  It is argued that this analysis of biographical understanding of the nurse’s experiences will contribute to giving of nurse’s perspective.  An analysis of the stories shows developmental stages of self-awareness of caring. First, as a novice nurse she observed that many patients at the department of rehabilitation became better if a nurse with professional knowledge and skills treated them well.  Then she became aware that she should improve her professional knowledge and skill as a nurse by attending training seminars and reading books on nursing care.  Second, the nurse became in charge of a patient who suffered from pain and became hysteric regardless of the medical treatment she received. Since the patient made nurse calls repeatedly, the other nurses at the hospital were less likely to respond to them.  But the nurse decided to care for her regardless of how much troublesome the patient became by being with the patient. Then the patient began to tell her untold story to her.  After listening to the story with care, all the pain that the patient suffered was gone and the patient stopped complaining.  Through this experience the nurse became aware of the importance of listening to patients’ stories with care.  Third, the nurse currently works as home visiting nurse to care patient with terminal illness.  The nurse tried to do her best to cure her patients but now she has been engaging in terminal care to help the patients dying happily at the end of their life.