[Practical experience as a source of learning]

This paper describes Benner's model of skill acquisition (1984) in nursing and additional work of Benner to a German readership. Emphasis is put on learning from practice by "knowing the patient" through "paradigm cases" and by "telling stories". Benner's work provides a model which allows to distinguish between different levels of competence and enables professionals to describe expert clinical practice in a language which is conductive to learning from experience. Suggestions are given as to how learning from experience may be promoted. Thought is given to the way in which experiential learning in nursing practice might be promoted in our situation. Benner's model offers a language which is capable of expressing the difference between levels of competence and which can describe examples of "mastery" which one might want to follow.