Where angels fear to tread--nursing and the concept of creativity

In the United Kingdom at the present time, there are radical changes taking place in the nursing profession. In order to cope with these new ideas, it has been suggested that nursing needs to attract into its ranks individuals who are not only highly intelligent but also highly creative. This paper examines the concept of creativity as it has been used in the fields of education and psychology and seeks to examine whether or not nurses with creative attributes are desirable or acceptable in current nursing practice. The ability of the nurse educator to provide for the needs of the highly divergent thinker is also questioned. The paper concludes with a suggested alternative for the use of creativity within the profession, that of the creation of innovative, original and humanistic approaches to the education of the student of nursing.