Introduction

As a student in health and human services, you may feel that a writing-intensive course is not an essential part of your education in the health curriculum. In fact, developing your writing skills is very important to you as a future nurse.

The ability to write well is one of the characteristics of a well-rounded nurse, since skill in writing demonstrates both intelligence and the ability to think critically.

As professionals, nurses need to be able to write well, since being a professional requires effective communication. Nurses communicate with other health care team members through progress notes and other clinical records, and important information regarding patient care is passed on through such records. For the best care of our patients, this information must be clear and concise, yet thorough and accurate, since these records may also serve as legal documents.

Nurses also communicate with our own professional audience, as well as other disciplines and the public, by writing in various publications. As nurses, we possess unique knowledge and skill, and we should share these with others. Since the role of nurses is ever changing and expanding, we need to let the public--and the entire medical community--understand exactly what nurses do. Through our writing we can make others aware of "what we know to be true" and provide "evidence for what we do."

In addition to clinical records and articles for publication, nurses write proposals, evaluations of both themselves and other staff, memos, newsletter articles, reports to supervisors, and much more.

Students' success in writing is reported to the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. An assessment of undergraduate writing in nursing (pdf) lists the criteria underlying the development of the CHHS writing requirements.