Art and Advanced Practice Nursing: Evidence Supporting Its Relevance in Graduate Education

Background: Nurses spend more time with health care consumers than any other health care professional and are the largest, most trusted group of health care providers in the U.S. health care system. At the same time, an increasingly diverse and complex society requires that nurses possess a unique capacity to care for consumers using culturally congruent and ethical approaches to care. This challenges nurse educators to provide learning experiences that teach emotional and affective forms of learning that complement the clinical skills acquired through the student's educational experience. Method: This article describes an educational innovation using art pedagogy in a course on ethical issues in advanced practice nursing. Results: Learners were able to use art to articulate their ideas about feminism, women's health, and race relations in a nonthreatening and creative venue. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate the relevance of this educational innovation in achieving learning outcomes for an underreported group-the graduate-level nurse.