By the time our students graduate, they know how to administer medications, perform assessments, and develop plans of care, but do they know how to make patients feel genuinely cared for? 

When I began teaching in a traditional BSN program, I quickly realized that something essential needed to be part of my classroom discussions. Students receive extensive instruction in nursing theory, clinical skills, patient safety, critical thinking, clinical judgment, and the use of the nursing process. Yet an equally important competency often remains assumed rather than intentionally taught: the practice of caring. 

I tell my students that providing care is what we do. Caring is how we do it and, more importantly, it is how we make patients and families feel while we are doing it.

Most students enter nursing because they genuinely want to help others and often describe themselves as caring individuals. However, many haven’t considered the difference between providing excellent patient care and demonstrating authentic caring behaviors. While these concepts are closely related, they are not the same. A nurse can complete every required task and still miss opportunities to connect with patients and families in ways that communicate compassion, empathy, and genuine presence. 

This distinction between providing care and demonstrating caring behaviors is why I believe caring must become an intentional focus of nursing education. 

Cultivating Person-Centered Caring in Nursing Education

The American Nurses Association’s Code of Ethics for Nurses (American Nurses Association, 2025) and the AACN Essentials (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2026), both identify person-centered care as a core competency for nursing practice. As nursing educators, we must do more than tell students to be caring. We need to teach them what caring looks like, how it differs from task completion, and how to integrate caring behaviors into every patient interaction.

In my teaching, I emphasize that caring should be individualized and reflect each patient’s unique needs, values, and preferences while also allowing students to express caring in ways that are authentic to their own professional identity. Caring is not a one-size-fits-all approach; it is a skill that can be cultivated through reflection, practice, and intentional learning. It can be practiced and strengthened over time.

I incorporate this concept into a course I teach called Professional Development I: Nursing Theory, Roles, and Ethics (PD1). I created a final project in this course titled The Caring Project. This project helps students recognize the difference between providing care and demonstrating caring behaviors and can make the difference between a competent nurse and an exceptional one.

Teaching Caring from the Beginning

PD1 is taken during the students’ first semester of nursing school while they are learning pharmacology, health assessment, and fundamentals of nursing. Those courses naturally focus on knowledge, psychomotor skills, clinical judgment, and patient safety. PD1 provides an opportunity to focus on something just as important, but often less intentionally taught: the human side of nursing. One of the phrases students hear repeatedly in my classroom is, “The little things are really the big things.” At first, they are unsure what I mean, but by the end of the semester, they form a deep understanding. 

Small gestures such as pulling up a chair before having a difficult conversation, learning how a patient prefers to be addressed, listening without rushing, bringing in chairs, water or a snack to a family who does not want to leave their loved one’s side, and recognizing what brings a patient comfort often become the moments patients remember long after they leave the care of the nurse.

We begin by exploring nursing history and discussing the profession’s evolution from a task-oriented, mechanistic model toward holistic, person-centered care. Students study foundational nursing theorists such as Jean Watson, Hildegard Peplau, Kristen Swanson, Dorothea Orem, Madeleine Leininger, and Florence Nightingale. These theorists’ work helps students connect the dots between nursing theory and everyday nursing practice.

Another activity that helps students begin recognizing caring behaviors is viewing the documentary The American Nurse (2013). Before completing The Caring Project, students watch the film and reflect on the ways nurses demonstrate caring in a variety of practice settings. We discuss how these nurses go beyond completing tasks by creating meaningful connections, advocating for patients, and responding to the human experience of illness. This activity helps students see that caring is not a separate action from nursing practice but rather, it is woven into every interaction they have with patients and families. These discussions and reflections set the foundation for The Caring Project, where students move from observing caring behaviors to exploring and understanding them through research, patient stories, and personal reflection.

Throughout the semester, we discuss therapeutic relationships, active listening, advocacy, ethical practice, and individualized care. One of the most important questions I encourage students to ask their patients is simple: “What matters most to you today?” 

Before we complete a task, we must first understand the person and what matters most to them at that moment.

Students also learn how to have what I call “conversational education.” Rather than talking at patients, we should talk with them, ensuring they understand their health conditions and treatment options so they can make informed decisions. We often do this as we casually talk and interact with our patients. Another aspect of caring includes recognizing our own biases. To help students develop this awareness, I incorporate Harvard’s Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a reflective activity. Students are often surprised by what they learn about their own assumptions that may influence care. We discuss how unconscious bias can influence communication, decision-making, and the way we perceive patients. This helps students understand that providing high-quality nursing care requires ongoing self-awareness.

The Caring Project

Instead of a traditional final examination, students complete a two-part assignment called The Caring Project. The first is a paper, and the second is a peer-to-peer share and discussion. My goal is not to just evaluate what they know about caring but to help them experience it through research, reflection, and listening to patients’ stories.

Students choose an area of nursing that interests them. They then review current scholarly literature on caring in nursing and share their key takeaways. They also interview someone who has recently been cared for by a nurse using eight questions adapted from Measuring Caring: International Research on Caritas as Healing (Nelson & Watson, 2012). The questions explore themes such as compassion, individualized care, respect for beliefs, education, trust, presence, and creating a healing environment. The person they interview is asked to rate how they experienced the care on a scale of 0-10, followed by some context. Lastly, they conclude with a personal reflection about how their understanding of caring has evolved throughout the semester.

One interview has stayed with me. A student asked permission to record her interview with an elderly neighbor so she could share part of it during our class discussion. As she played the recording, the room became silent. Students were not just hearing an interview; they were hearing the impact that caring from nurses can have on a patient’s life. When she asked him whether his nurses had honored his faith and respected his beliefs, his voice became emotional, and you could hear that he was crying softly. 

He recalled a nurse who asked if she could pray with him before leaving the unit. He remembered another nurse noticing a religious garment he was wearing as she was helping him change into a hospital gown. She recognized its significance and acknowledged it as an important symbol of his faith. Neither interaction involved administering medication or a complex nursing intervention, yet those were the moments he remembered most. Many students were visibly moved as they heard how the smallest acts of caring left a lasting impact.

Closing Thoughts

I believe caring can, and should, be taught. Clinical competence will always be essential, but competence alone is not enough to define excellent nursing. As educators, we have a responsibility to intentionally cultivate caring attitudes and behaviors that communicate compassion, presence, respect, and human connection. 

The approach I use in PD1 is only one example of how caring can be integrated into nursing education. Whether through reflection, discussion, simulation, storytelling, or conversations with patients, every nursing course can offer something to reinforce that caring is more than competency in completing tasks. Caring helps patients and families feel seen, heard, and respected. Our students graduate knowing how to provide safe, evidence-based care, but my hope is that they will also know how to be a more compassionate nurse. 

Recommended Resources

• American Nurses Association. Code of Ethics for Nurses (2025) 
• American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education (2026)
• Watson Caring Science Institute: Resources from Jean Watson’s Theory of Human Caring. 
• Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT). Project Implicit. Resource for self-reflection on unconscious biases and how they may influence interactions and decision-making.
• The Difference Between Care & Caring. (YouTube Video I show in my class)
• The American Nurse (2013). Documentary film used to facilitate student reflection and discussion about caring behaviors, nurse-patient relationships, and the human side of nursing practice. Represents nurses from diverse practice experiences.
• Nelson & Watson (2012). Measuring Caring: International Research on Caritas as Healing.

References

American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2026). The Essentials: Core competencies for professional nursing education. 2026 Edition The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education      

American Nurses Association. (2025). Code of ethics for nurses. American Nurses Association. https://codeofethics.ana.org 

Nelson, J., & Watson, J. (Eds.). (2012). Measuring caring: International research on Caritas as healing. Springer Publishing Company.