Language and the experience of patients’ values in nursing care: A theoretical exploration

SummaryThis paper investigates the relationship between language and the acquisition of knowledge concerning patients’ values in nursing care. It delineates the difference between a theory of learning, based on first-hand experience and second-hand information, and the consequences that either form of learning may have for the nurses’ particular experience in practise. Critical questions are raised in relation to the definition of the first period of nursing as an apprentice-type of education. The experience of patients’ values requires an openness to meet the patient in a way such that the patient and the patient’s issues can be understood on their own terms. The experience is not a wordless enterprise, nor was it in the time of the pioneers. It can be argued that a caring philosophy, as second-hand information, may help to bridge the gap between what is already known and any radically new knowledge, both in general and particular, and in individual knowledge concerning patients’ values.