Preserving the ‘passion’ in compassionate nursing care

Historically, developing the ‘compassionate character’ was the impetus for care, and gave the human nursing profession its ethos. In Florence Nightingale's opinion, the best nurses were good people who cultivated certain virtues or qualities in their character, one of which was compassion. Patients were expected to be the centre of all nurses' thoughts. Nurses were to be kind but never emotional, because they were caring for living people, compared with say plumbers or carpenters. Nightingale reiterated to probationer nurses that it was what was inside the nurse that counted, emphasising that the rest was only the outward shell or envelope (Nightingale, 1859). From Nightingale's time until the 1960s, numerous nurse writers championed similar ideas of care, with compassion being viewed as a quality associated with an individual's character. Compassion stems from virtue; it is about the intent and practised disposition of the nurse. It is nurtured in, and by, the culture and ethos of clinical practice (Bradshaw, 2011). Compassion is not strained by pressure or displaced by stress. Conversely, the greater the hardship, the more compassion is required.