The arts are valued also for their liberalizing effect. They stimulate imaginative creativity. They broaden a person's perspective of the human situation, of man in his world. For instance, depictions of suffering man or of other aspects of the human condition that are found in poetry, drama, or literature are far more descriptive and much closer to reality than those given in typical textbooks. Current nursing practice reflects the educational preparation of nurses that is weighted heavily with scientific courses and the methodology of positivistic science. Arts and humanities are a necessary complement. Science aims at universals and the discovery of general laws; art reveals the uniqueness of the individual. While science strives for quantification, art is more concerned with quality. Strict conformance to methodology and replicability are prized in scientific studies, whereas freedom and uniqueness of style reign in art. Science, forever updating itself, opens the nurse's eyes to constant change and innovation; the classics promote a sense of the unchanging and lasting in man's world. Science may provide the nurse with knowledge on which to base her decision, but it remains for the arts and humanities to direct the nurse toward examination of values underlying her practice. Thus, humanistic nursing has both scientific and artistic dimensions. Expression Humanistic nursing and art are interrelated in another way. Some nurses who are also artists use their respective arts to express their nursing experience. Poetry is a good example. In an article, "Nurses as Poets," Trautman notes that since the 1940s progressively greater numbers of poems about nursing have been published and since the 1960s the quality of these poems has improved considerably.[2] She believes that nurses' ability to express their feelings about nursing in poetry cannot be attributed entirely to a change in times. Rather, it is a reflection of change in nursing practice. For one thing, contemporary nursing requires a great deal of abstract thinking. It calls for an understanding involving mental and emotional investment, and imaginative feeling _with_ the patient. The {88} nurse-poet puts aside technical terms, looks at her patient in a fresh and creative way and shares her view in a poem. A second reason offered by Trautman is the increased emphasis in nursing education on communication and verbal skills. A nurse with a talent for writing may be moved by a particular experience to share it. Thus, "the sensitive nurse-writer may use poetic expression to work through a problem, to muse about a detail, or to record a profound experience."[3]