Narrative Nursing

Narrative Nursing is a form of storytelling that is used as an intervention with nurses to empower them to share their profound experiences in the nurse-patient relationship. Nurses participating in the Narrative Nursing workshops each share an individual encounter that was meaningful in their own nursing career. The shared experience serves to acclaim the power of nurses as leaders at the point of care and nurse leaders mentoring others. Four stories of nurse leadership are included in this article, 2 from clinical nurses providing care at the bedside and 2 from nurses in leadership roles. Participants in Narrative Nursing describe the workshops as inspirational, affirming, and empowering of the essence of professional nursing. Leadership lessons learned from the Narrative Nursing experiences thus far are included as are plans for future work to inspire all nurses at all levels of leadership. The future work includes embedding the intervention within relationship-based leadership theories.