Reflections of a ‘Joint Clinical Chair-Advanced Practice Nursing Practitioner’ on Finding Meaning in a Patient’s Story Allied with Clinical Scholarship

An exemplar case in clinical practice is explored by a joint-chair of clinical nursing (clinical professor). The complexity of the pain case is unravelled utilising a patient-centered framework. The meaning of the patient story is narrated through the lens of the clinical professor who is also an advanced practice nursing practitioner with prescriptive authority in pain medicine. The capabilities expected of a clinical professor in practice are put to the test as the case unfolds. The outcome hopefully will provoke conversation among advanced practice nursing practitioners/aspirants on the enablers that nurses bring to the bedside in the context of ‘what matter most to the patient as an individual’ is ‘what matters most to the nurse’. Nurses are clinically committed to help their patients, and this help entails curative efforts to alleviate patient suffering, as well as looking after their well-being in a concerned attitude of care that is quintessential to the clinical encounter (Kottow 2001, p. 60).