Donna Frost

174 The critical, creative and collaborative inquiry processes described in the previous two chapters enabled, over time, a transformation of our understandings of our nursing practice and the professional artistry within it, and of our facilitation of professional artistry in our own and others’ practice. This chapter presents the findings related to the nature of professional artistry within nursing practice . First presented are the findings concerning the essential nature of professional artistry within nursing. Secondly, professional artistry is described in terms of the five patterns of engagement that are evidentwhen a nurse is practicingwith professional artistry, followed by the outcomes of this kind of practice. The chapter closes with presentation and explanation of Figure 6 . 13 in which all the results as to the nature of professional artistry within nursing come together. Attention turns, in Chapter 7 , to the facilitation of professional artistry. The findings presented here are supported with a diversity of data: quotes taken from interviews, field notes and practice observations, examples of phrases, insights and metaphors generated during collaborative data interpretation during CCCI meetings, and examples of creative expressions made for example in practice or during the meetings. See Table 6 . 1 for a list of the abbreviations used when identifying the source of the data fragment 11 . Not all audio-recordings of interviews, conversations or meetings were fully transcribed. The analysis process, including the use of non-transcribed recordings, was described in the final section of Chapter 4 while decisions concerning translation from Dutch to English were illustrated in Chapter 5 . Here, in Chapter 6 , when a quote is taken from a fully transcribed recording a page number is included in the location identifier of the quote. Otherwise the particular audio recording containing the quote is identified and it can be assumed that only parts of the recording were transcribed. 11 For readability the construction ‘he/she/they’ is avoided when a third person pronoun is required. Within each practice example only one personal pronoun is used to refer to the nurse, and another to the other person or people in the example. This means that in some of the examples the nurse is female, in others male or gender neutral. Usage is consistent within each example.