Nursing Is an Art

Comments prepared for graduates of the Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing Program at OHSU’s Monmouth, OR, Nursing Convocation on June 14, 2019

On behalf of the OHSU School of Nursing, I would like to welcome you to the 2019 commencement ceremony for graduates of the Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing program at the Monmouth campus. As we prepare to honor the graduates for their accomplishments, I’d like to pose a question to them: Are you really prepared to be a nurse? Though I’d love to hear how you just answered that question in your mind, let me tell you what I think: No. You are not… unless… well before I finish that sentence, and before you demand your money back! Let me first tell you what I think true nursing is.

Nursing is an art; and if it is to be made an art, it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or cold marble, compared with having to do with the living body — the temple of God’s spirit? It is one of the Fine Arts; I had almost said the finest of the Fine Arts (1).

Do you recognize these words? They were spoken by none other than the nurse’s nurse, Florence Nightingale — and though this quote is quite well known — its source is not. It comes from a pamphlet penned by Nightingale called Una and the Lion. She wrote this pamphlet to commemorate the death of a nurse (referred to as Una in this work) whom she regarded as among the greatest of nurses. Interestingly, in this commemoration, Nightingale dedicates space to defend the profession of nursing from those who regarded it, at that time — the late 1800s — , as work for the unskilled and the uneducated.

Listen to how Nightingale bookends her famous quote about nursing being an art. Just prior, she writes of Una, “…she had trained herself to the utmost — she was always training herself; for this [that is, nursing] is no holiday work.” And just following she states, “There is no such thing as amateur art; [and] there is no such thing as amateur nursing.”

And here you have it, in one tidy paragraph, three of Nightingale’s core ideas about what sets nursing apart as very special vocation. Let me summarize it for you in slightly more contemporary language. The greatest nurses, I believe Nightingale would have said, are scholars, professionals, and artists

• Great nurses are scholars. A scholar in that they have dedicated themselves to learning — always training. As a nurse, you must commit to never knowing enough — you must always be encouraging your intellectual appetite by feeding it with a steady diet of continuous learning: Read, pursue another degree, attend professional development that is beyond what your employer requires of you. Turn yourself into a veritable fortress of knowledge about the human condition in all its misery and glory.
• Great nurses are professionals — not amateurs. The word “professional” came about, “As people became more and more specialized in their trade, [and as this happened] they began to ‘profess’ their skill to others, and ‘vow’ to perform their trade to the highest known standard. With a reputation to uphold…” professionals, thereby, became the trusted workers of a society in a specific trade (2). Undoubtedly all of you have heard that nursing is a great career because you can earn a living wage, and while that is certainly true, Nightingale was quite emphatic that nursing was something much more than a “job” or a “livelihood.” She said, “Probably no person ever did that well which [they] did only for money… You never made an artist [an artist] [or a nurse a nurse] by paying [them] well (3).” Great nurses do what they do well, not because they are being paid, but because they have “[vowed] to perform their trade to the highest known standard.” They are not amateurs; they are not playing at their work. They are intrinsically motivated to not only aspire, but to achieve, excellence.
• Finally, great nurses are artists. Nightingale so eloquently and aptly illuminates what happens when a nurse practices as a scholar and a professional, with preparation and devotion. The great nurse creates art through the medium of human suffering and potential — by placing their hands on the raw material of a moment, they bring forth beauty in both life and death. Now this is nursing at its apex, at its best: Learned and passionate individuals stepping into the mayhem of life and bringing order, form, texture, color, healing, help, and… beauty. “It is one of the Fine Arts; I had almost said the finest of the Fine Arts.”

So, are you really prepared to be a nurse?

To be a scholar, a professional, and an artist are all, ultimately, internal commitments, intrinsic expressions, promises you make to yourself and your patients when no one is there to listen, to be a certain kind of person, to have a certain kind of heart. As educators, we cannot do that for you. You must do it for yourself. Or, like Nightingale and Una, turn to a source greater than yourself. Whichever the case, your formation as a nurse is not complete until these commitments are permanently stitched into the fabric of your person.

So are you really prepared to be a nurse? The answer is, “No” — unless… unless you have committed to being a scholar, a professional, and an artist. Have you? On behalf of your faculty, let me state that we deeply hope that you have, because this is what distinguishes an OHSU nurse and this is what you are about to become.

(1) Nightingale, F. (1871). Una and the lion. Cambridge: Riverside Press. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Una_and_the_Lion

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional#Etymology

(3) Nightingale, F. (1871). Una and the lion. Cambridge: Riverside Press. Brackets mine.