Along this vein, nursing may be viewed as a kind of performing art.
Fahy, nurse-educator-actress, draws an interesting comparison between
the process of nursing and acting in a drama.
"In a play the actors know certain things, there are a certain
number of given circumstances: plot, events, epoch, time, and
plan of action, conditions of life, director's interpretation.
The technical things are also there: setting, props, lights,
sound effects, and so forth. But it remains at the time of
curtain for the actors to go on alone and produce. In the act
of nursing there are some known facts that the nursing student
or the nurse can pick up: name, age, religion, ethnic
background, medical diagnosis, and plan of care (sometimes),
her own background knowledge and experience, and her own unique
personality. However, when she encounters other patients--watch
it! The same thing happens in the teaching-learning process."
"Edward A. Wright in _Understanding Today's Theater_ says about
the actor and acting something which I believe about the nurse
and nursing.
'... the actor ... is his own instrument. His tools are
himself, his talent, and his ability. Unlike other creative
artists, he must work through and with his own body, voice,
emotions, appearance, and his own elusive personal quality....
He uses his intelligence, his memory of emotions, his
experiences, and his knowledge of himself and his fellow
men--but always he is his own instrument.'"[13]
Here is another example of viewing nursing as a performing art. Once a
nurse was trying to describe the nursing care she received from another
nurse when she had been ill. She struggled with some details of finer
points and then summed it up by saying, "I felt her nursing care was
just like a symphony. That's the only way I can describe it."
These comparisons bring many aesthetic qualities to mind, for instance,
harmony, rhythm, tone, feeling. Nursing is like music and drama in other
ways. The nursing procedure, like a musical score or a play script,
allows for individual interpretations, adaptations, and embellishments.
Although nurses follow the same general principles, each can develop her
own unique style. {92} If nursing really is viewed as a performing art,
there are opportunities for creative exploration and development of the
art of nursing. And furthermore, these individualized styles of nursing
are worthy of description and sharing.
Another similarity is the ephemeral character of nursing, music, and
drama. A particular nursing transaction, like a concert or play, is
transitory, short-lived. Yet the effects may be long-lasting and
remembered. There is this difference in nursing, I believe. Each nursing
transaction may flow into a stream of nursing care extending
continuously over 24 hours a day for weeks, months, years. And many
individual nurses "get into the act." How does this affect the art of
nursing? How is nursing like and unlike the other performing arts? The
answers to these and similar questions must come from the nurse-artists.