An experience in narrative writing to improve public health practice by students

The experimental use of the Public Health journal is of value for several reasons. It demonstrates, again, that we may create more positive environments for learning in nursing. We can use techniques from various disciplines in order to get students to use more of their faculties and senses in thinking, problem solving, and communicating. The writing project arose out of the problem students have in assimilating Public Health values, in considering a wider range of alternatives for health care, and in feeling ill at ease with narrative writing and exploration. Since skills in cognition, thought, and writing are interrelated and affect each other, it is appropriate to apply writing methods and examine the outcomes in nursing students' work. The findings support the value of the narrative journal process. Although it does not operate alone in changing student overall response to Public Health in any given semester, it does affect who the students are and what their political-social values are. The students, in general, have been exposed to only traditional, conservative ideas regarding health care delivery and the state's social responsibilities. It is in experimenting with alternative ways to deal with the problems students have in approaching the Public Health model that we further aid them in their struggle to become professional nurse practitioners, who can effectively help people achieve "physical, mental, and social well being," health as defined by the World Health Organization. This is the objective we, as nursing faculty, need to keep before ourselves as a guiding principle at all times.