Soapbox: Permanent Novice

In my psysch nursing class the other day, our instructor got on her soapbox for a moment about nursing. She said nurses are in the privileged position of always being a novice, for each patient, every time. Patients know if you are pretending to listen to them, so we have to learn how to really listen, so that we can learn from the patient. The patient is the expert on herself, and the nurse is there to listen and learn. I like this.