Donna Frost

Nature of professional artistry 177 6 noticed them before. But now that I was sensitized to them, able to recognise them, I started seeing them everywhere and I realized they had been there all along. I thought back to our last cycle of inquiry in The Hague, to the inquiry into the idea of PA having to do with our view, our world view of practice. Once we had had this insight, collectively as an inquiry group, we recognised it in almost every practice story we had previously told, in many of the metaphors used to elucidate our experiences and in the observations we had made of each other in practice.” (Donna-RJ- 20150505 -vol 13 p 41 ) Responses from patients who had worked with the nurses in this inquiry reflected the idea that the nurses who practised with professional artistry brought something special to the encounter, something which was indeed difficult to put into words. “Oh yes, she was the ‘real deal’. Really knew what she was doing. Nothing seemed to phase her. I felt I could relax when I knew she was around. […] It wasn’t really any particular thing she did. More like a feeling of, I don’t know, I felt safe. More than that though. Now, well, I can’t really put it into words.” (RNI- 2011 Res 03 Con-p 7 ) Aspects of the way the professional was as a person, and how they made the patient, or the patient’s family or carer, feel, were important. “He took his work and his profession very seriously, and my husband’s situation, he took that seriously too. But it didn’t feel like that. It wasn’t heavy, anything like that. His interest, his engagement, his expertise – it made it all easier to bear.” (NPI- 2013 Fam 05 Con-p 3 ) “You are nimble like a butterfly, here and there. You see and hear everything, you notice everything. Once you have landed it doesn’t take long for people to realise, Oh, with you here, we’ll be alright” (NPI- 2014 Pat 17 Con-p 4 ) Members of the NP inquiry spoke early on in the inquiry of working intentionally and using their whole self, without initially referring to this kind of practice as having to do with a way of seeing or being.