Caring in palliative nursing: competency or complacency?

Abstract

Caring is an attribute of palliative nursing that is assumed to be fundamental. However, as the sophistication of palliative care increases, the liberal art of caring has become submerged under the weight of medical and pharmacological sciences. The nursing profession defends caring as the essence of its practice yet caring work in the palliative environment receives relatively little attention in research or in literature generally. Although it is accepted that nurses' caring work sometimes involves intimate and private aspects of patient care, the value and positive outcomes of caring should not remain hidden. Palliative nurses have special but tentative opportunities to prove the value of caring and define the complexity of caring work. This article argues that nurses need to reclaim the caring ethic and demonstrate its worth.