When nursing meets English: using a pathography to develop nursing students' culturally competent selves.

This article describes a collaboration between nursing and English faculty to pilot and study the use of a pathography to develop nursing students' cultural competence. The setting is a nursing program in an urban community college serving many foreign-born students. Interpreting a pathography was found to develop students' compassion for the patient and family. Exercises and assignments were used to challenge students to critically read complex transcultural interactions and apply relevant nursing concepts to analysis of these situations in health care delivery. The essay assignment presented challenges to students because of their writing skills.