[Sharon]

Consider how nurses communicate through stories. Share an example where you have either taught someone through storytelling or have learned through storytelling.

[Courtney]

I believe nurses teach through story telling all the time. I am currently in consolidation and whenever I do something that has a better way of doing it or is not correct than my preceptor will correct me or teach me through telling me a story of something that happened to her. I remember this one time I was using a needle to inject a palliative patient with routine hydromorphone. I did not believe the needle had the ability to retract so I went to recap the needle so that it did accidently poke myself or someone else. My preceptor corrected me and showed me that the syringe/needle I was using did in fact retract and then proceeded to tell me a story about how recapping a needle is so dangerous and how she once poked herself with a needle that she was trying to recap.

[Tara]

I feel that storytelling about previous experiences really help ensuring we avoid mistakes and use safe and effective treatment to patients. It can help one with common mishaps that are easily avoidable. An example that comes to mind is the importance of timely and correct documentation. A preceptor once shared a story on a near overdose of medication. There was an incident when the previous nurse did not correctly document that a narcotic was given just prior to shift change. Oncoming nurse started her shift and proceeded to dispense narcotic to a patient that just received it, this lead to being double dosed and the resident started to become distressed with difficulty breathing, SOB. Thankfully this was not fatal and resident recovered. The previous nurse, signed the narc binder but did no.t chart off on patients profile. Her big take home was to always check MAR and Narc signature book before administering.

[Patrice]

During my hospital clinical placement, my preceptor often used storytelling about her past nursing experiences, as a means to guide and motivate us as nursing students. One of the stories was about medication administration, she mentioned that, on a hectic day she was administering medication to several patients and while she was in a hurry to complete her tasks, with confidence, thinking that she knew the medication well that was to be administered to one patient, she quickly glanced at the medication and dosage without double checking. After administering the medication, she realized the wrong dosage was given to the patient. She immediately reported the error; the patient was assessed and closely monitored. This was a personal story to emphasize to us as nursing students, the importance of double-checking medication orders and ensuring the accuracy of all orders.

[Brittany]

My preceptor liked to use “story telling” as a means of teaching. Most of these stories she would not give me the end result but have me critically think and come up with the end result before telling me what happened. This allowed for things to stick, ensuring not to make similar mistakes and of course always use my critical thinking skills. This is definitely something I will carry forward as a leader in nursing.

[Ayotunde]

I got to learn about learning through storytelling in college during the TRC course, this to me is a unique way of learning so I adopted this method and luckily I also meet people who do this so I guess it is something familiar around us.
I do this often when guiding my children on what to do and how to especially when I read things in the news or share my experience in my workplace from what I learned from colleagues, nurses and sometimes residents.
I discovered my eldest son is taking this part in explaining things to his siblings.

[Omono]

My preceptor during my orientation told me the importance of immediately documenting the administration of Narcotic as you administer. She told me a story of a nurse who did not document her narcotic as she gives to her residents. Unfortunately she was sick, ambulances was called to take her to the hospital. RN checking her books, finds some discrepancy. Incident reported to police. On regaining consciousness the police were by her bed to question her about the missing narcotic that were not signed for.
Lesson of this narration is sign the books as you take out the narcotic to administer to clients.

[Author]

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