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Ms. Price's defense of nursing is laudable; still, I encourage nurses to be open to patients' experiences. The converse of Ms. Price's comments is also true: if one is looking only for the positive, one will see only that.

 

I hope that Ms. Price (and any other nurse who was offended by my findings) can step back and ask herself, "If I were hospitalized, would I do anything to make sure I received good care?" Put yourself into that bed; if you can answer truthfully that you would receive high-quality care without an acute awareness of, or change in, your behavior, and without your family or friends nearby, and that you would feel safe and secure, then perhaps my participants' stories were, as Ms. Price says, "not extensive enough to get the true picture." If you cannot answer in this way, let the dialogue continue.