What Science Leaves Unsaid

The current featured article in ANS is titled “What Science Leaves Unsaid: A Reconsideration in 2 Voices” by Geraldine Gorman, PhD, RN and Shirley Stephenson, MS, FNP-BC. The article is available to download at no cost while it is featured. Here is a message from the authors about the significance of their work, the article abstract, and a brief bio for each of the authors!

As Nursing has long been lauded as a profession both ‘art and science,’ it is time we recognize the essential role the Humanities play in deepening our understanding  of the human experience. We attest that the Humanities complete the Sciences. Our article testifies to the varied ways practice, education and professional retention benefit from the arts and from reflective engagement.

Geraldine Gorman and Shirley Stephenson

Abstract
At a time when new and veteran nurses are fleeing the profession and the term resilience is as worn out as the workers it is meant to inspire, scholars and educators must excavate the intuitive and creative core of nursing. Science addresses facts but lacks language for nuance. This article asserts that nursing, which lags behind medicine in appreciating the value of its stories, must recognize the essential diversity the humanities bring to our understanding of the human condition. As workforce deficits, moral distress, and vicarious trauma proliferate, a consilience between the art and science of nursing and a reminder of their ability to potentiate one another are overdue.

https://journals.lww.com/advancesinnursingscience/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2023&issue=10000&article=00005&type=Fulltext

Geraldine Gorman is a Clinical Professor and Kathleen M. Irwin Endowed Chair in Outstanding Clinical Practice in the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She teaches public health nursing, cultural fluency and ethics and the grief, loss and dying course in the hospice/palliative care certificate program. She has also designed a primary prevention of war elective. She is a member of the American Public Health Association and through the Peace Caucus, is a founding member of the Primary Prevention of War group. Together they have published an article and textbook on primary prevention. Dr. Gorman is an advocate for the inclusion of the humanities in nursing education and practice. She has an MA in English literature and practices as a hospice nurse.

Shirley Stephenson is a poet and family nurse practitioner. She is a primary care provider at the Mile Square Health Center on Chicago’s west side, and she serves as the medical clinician and sub-investigator for a National Institute on Drug Abuse clinical trial on cocaine use disorders. Her clinical focus includes substance use treatment and HIV prevention. She is a didactic coordinator for the Integrated Substance Use Disorder Fellowship at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), where she was recently appointed the Poet-in-Residence for the Institute for Research on Addictions. Shirley is pursuing her PhD in UIC’s Program for Writers. Her belief is that the humanities remind us of our interconnectedness.