Donna Frost

Facilitation of the development of professional artistry 233 7 she now used terms like ‘vision’, ‘purpose’ and ‘meaning’, instead of noting her tasks and the ‘things’ that needed ‘doing’. Jane had gained insight into what was really important in her work generally and, in this example, the admission conversation specifically. Furthermore, by making this explicit she provided colleagues and managers within the organisation with a chance to understand what a difference a nurse could make to a new resident and, as well, give them a glimpse of the magnitude of the transition that the new resident was making. Flexingourprofessional artistrymuscles, then,was not onlyabout learning toexpand the scope and kind of situations in which we were able to practise with artistry, but also to be able to articulate these aspects of practice so that they become visible for self and for others. We came to recognise this as an important step in inviting others to consider their own practice with new eyes and in creating the conditions for others to perhaps take steps towards becoming aware of their own professional artistry or the potential for it in their practice (the first milestone). This aspect ties in with another aspect of flexing professional artistry muscles: helping other people, particularly those outside the inquiry, to perceive or understand their practice in different ways. This happened in diverse ways during the inquiry. For example by giving compliments that pointed out those aspects of practice congruent with professional artistry or asking questions about them. In what way did you help the patient to feel safe and settled at the beginning of the conversation? (Anna-NPI- 20140519 Obs-CoachingStudent-p 2 ) I thought you did really well: you didn’t lose sight of the important details but you kept the big picture in mind while helping Mr. X prepare for discharge. What were you wanting to achieve, looking back? (Pieter-NPI- 20140706 Obs-CoachingStudent-p 3 ) Now! What a difference this conversation has made to that patient. […] What was, do you think, the moment when you felt the mood or the feeling shift? (Wendy-NPI- 20141030 Obs-NewGraduate-p 1 ) As the above examples show, the feedback and questions helped create the conditions in which students or new nurses could become aware of aspects of professional artistry. This was possible for the NP inquiry members because we had become used to asking these kinds of questions of each other during the