EDITORIAL
Kaleidoscope: Exploring the Richness of Nursing
As nurses and student nurses, we are remarkably rich. Our richness is not
calculated in dollars, to be sure, but in a more valuable currency—the opportunity to
care for persons across the whole range of human experience. As our patients share with us
important portions of their lives, we experience with them and through them the entire
range of life—from birth to death—with all its glorious victories and sorrowful
defeats, high comedy and deep tragedy.
In my many years of practice, I experienced joy, sadness, satisfaction, disappointment,
and exhaustion—sometimes all in the same day. But I can truly say that I was never
bored! No day was ever like any other; there were always new patients and staff with
unique problems and perspectives that challenged my creativity, knowledge and leadership
skills. As we move into the new century, we can expect to see even more variety in nurses
and in nursing—a veritable kaleidoscope of rich and vivid experience. Given this
variety of nurses and nursing experience, we will need to utilize a variety of modalities
to express and communicate the richness of our experience.
Beginning with this issue of JUNS, we will dedicate a section of the journal to exploring the richness of the nursing experience through the creative art of student nurses. Kaleidoscope, as we have chosen to title this section, will explore the more aesthetic side of nursing through the creative use of media. Students’ impressions of the richness of nursing will shine through prose, poetry, and art as they share their own personal experiences. I think you will find, as we have, that the fresh and unique perspectives of these highly creative student scholars broaden our understanding of the kaleidoscope of nursing. Enjoy!
Judy Effken
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