Any volume with Patricia Benner as an author or editor is noteworthy. She has expanded the thinking of the nursing profession for decades, beginning with her 1984 book, From Novice to Expert. This book describes how nurses, because they belong to a practice profession, grow from novice to expert with experience. Before that work, the simplistic perception within and around the profession was that new graduates should be able to begin their careers fully formed. Publication of From Novice to Expert brought about a renewed appreciation for the complexity of becoming a nursing professional. Only by fully understanding the intricacies of career development could the profession begin to envision new ways of facilitating that advancement.
In opening nurses’ minds to the generative powers of understanding those intricacies, Benner helped lead a worldwide movement that questioned decontextualization—a focus on main effects, even if the basics do not hold for every population or situation—in favor of a view that values interaction effects and looks at individuals embedded in their family, social, cultural, ethnic, and work environments. This focus on the similarities and differences that constitute the “lived experience” has led to all sorts of new insights, not the least of which is an appreciation for the complexities shaping women’s health (McBride & McBride, 1981). When one gives up expecting to find only one pattern and stops trying to fit every patient into that mold, creativity is more likely to be unleashed, and the likelihood of finding an appropriate intervention is increased.