Valuing Joyful Teaching Moments: Nursing Faculty Experiences in Texas.

Purpose: Studies of joyful experiences in teaching nursing and related implications are lacking in the literature. The concept of joy seems undervalued yet critical to the theoretical basis for improving holistic faculty experiences and potentially affecting students and patients. The purpose of this study is to give voice to instances of joyful teaching identified by nursing faculty and to consider related implications, including advancing holistic nursing education. Design: In this sequential exploratory multimethod study, faculty discussed joyful teaching, responded to survey questions, and completed a Likert-type measure of outcomes. Eleven faculty were interviewed; interviews were digitally recorded and professionally transcribed. Interviews were coded using qualitative content analysis; quantitative data provided frequency counts. Findings: Four main themes emerged: "aha" moments, faculty validation, witnessing transformation, and planting seeds. Faculty shared experiences with peers, students, or both, and occasionally with others. Three outcome themes of joy were identified: transcendence, meaning, and activity. The most frequently reported significance of joy was hope and resilience. Conclusions: Joyful experiences belong in the literature and can inform holistic practice. Our results suggest that joyful moments support faculty and that students and patients may also benefit from this emotion, even though it has been undervalued in nursing research.

COVID-19: Public and patient involvement, now more than ever.

The research community is responding with speed to the COVID-19 pandemic, with rapid response mechanisms to fund research, shortened application turnaround times, and expedited research ethics processes. Public and patient involvement (PPI) is under pressure in this rapid response research, where it is easy for researchers and funders to dismiss PPI as non-essential, an added extra, a "nice to have".  In this open letter, we, researchers and PPI contributors, argue that PPI is important, now more than ever. The pandemic is impacting everyone in society, with normal rules of engagement discarded. The solution to overcoming this virus will come from many different sources and many changes will emerge to healthcare delivery and to how we live our lives. It is essential that the research to find solutions is shaped by all who will be impacted: the public and the patient must be central contributors and their voice must be hear.