Coloring Outside the Lines

Abstract

Creativity facilitates the continuous expansion of nurses' interpretations of their nursing practice and is the essence of holistic care. In this study, the concept of creativity was explored by addressing the question, "When student nurses are given complete freedom to design nursing care for a patient, what types of activities will they include?" The students were provided with a case scenario involving a comatose Native American male patient and asked to complete an "Exercise to Stretch Your Mind." Forty-eight students completed the exercise for a total of 343 responses. Qualitative data analysis was completed, and the nursing process was used to conceptually link the patterns of interventions that emerged. These interventions involved using the sensory modalities of physical and emotional feeling, hearing, and smelling to provide contextual experiences for the patient to connect and reconnect with himself. The connecting context included six areas: the outside, his nurse, his family, his spirit, the familiar, and the future.