“Write what you know” is an over-used command in the writing world today. I say, write about what drives you—your passion coupled with a way to impart wisdom along with medical knowledge.

Yes, writers take assignments for money or bylines, and write copy whether their heart is in the assignment or not. But consider writing or speaking about what really drives your nursing career, and then find a market and audience.

My fiction professor told me that when I wrote a story whose main character was a nurse, it was some of my better writing. By incorporating real-life circumstances with true-to-life emotional reactions to disease, my characters were more believable, memorable, and the imagery resonated; consequently, more reader interest—and a better grade!

Nursing experiences brought more authenticity to diverse settings and story-driven plots when writing historical fiction. It was a process, but in time, I found my writing voice and a specialty focus that required research, which improved my nursing care and led to community outreach.

I learned at a writer’s conference to study a topic for at least 4 months to enhance one’s expertise on the subject matter. Personal experience is a plus and quoting specialists in the field a must.

Writing: A way toward improving nursing care and to serve

Many years ago, I worked in a high-risk labor and delivery department of a local hospital when the first female AIDS patient entered our unit. This experience piqued my interest to care for AIDS patients. My initial gut reaction was a deep concern with the unfounded fear of this patient among my colleagues. We all were required to walk around like space cadets in full infectious disease regalia. I refused to do that as I gained more knowledge of the disease and its precautions.

I started to attend HIV/AIDS conferences for medical professionals and also for people with AIDS and their caregivers, which at the time, were mostly gay men. In the 1980s, little was written about women with AIDS. An editor of a perinatal nursing journal accepted my proposal on the topic of women infected with HIV, which incorporated subsequent nursing care. I was required to take on a co-writer with an advanced degree to have the manuscript accepted and published.

This led to writing for another nursing periodical about a 9-year-old Haitian girl, whom I had taken care of only days before she died of AIDS. The article included how the emotional end-of-life and post-mortem care of the child impacted her mother and the nurses.

After caring for a 5-month-old baby who was dying of AIDS and meeting his parents, and then giving pentamidine treatments to homecare patients, I felt called to start an AIDS support group for couples in my home.

One of my tasks as a nurse educator in a homecare nursing agency was to teach HIV/AIDS after Florida mandated 4 hours of AIDS education. To help diminish the fear of our nursing and aide staff in taking care of patients with the disease, I invited women with AIDS, one of whom was in my group, to speak. This opened the door to speak at a high school’s health class, which led to an invitation to speak about sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS at a girl’s club in a poor Black community.

Other options

Writing the “how to” book or article with a lot of details is an avenue for the nurse writer who loves communicating details. Medical facilities need writers to develop and write processes and standard operating procedures. If driven to express the minutia in life, consider writing poems about your nursing experiences like Emily Dickenson with her buzzing fly and murmur of a bee.

Think outside of your own perceived box of what it means to be a professional nurse and consider how to impart improved healthcare through the written or spoken word, as well as community outreach. Let go of notions that you are stuck in your everyday nursing routines and imagine innovative ways to improve nursing care. Whether it’s in writing, teaching, or public speaking, convey your passion and what drives you as a professional nurse.

Writing about real life circumstances is an avenue of expression to convey your story and life lessons. Express unresolved pain and what you could have done differently through the lives of fictional characters. Instead of writing around something, just say it in creative nonfiction. Let go of your comfort zones and write with untapped passion!

Lynda A. Stear, BA, RN is a writer from Longs, South Carolina.