Nurses' informal teaching practices: their nature and impact on the production of patient care.

Nurses' informal teaching practices have been viewed as secondary to formal teaching. This article places them at the centre of professional nursing practice. On the basis of extended observation of 12 experienced surgical nurses, I assert they teach inexperienced physicians as well as patients, that their teaching is planned but more often informal and embedded in other work, and that their intent is to produce both understanding of health and illness practices and compliance with institutional policies and procedures. Nurses' informal teaching practices are essential to the ongoing production of patient care.