Windows open: humanities teaching during undergraduate clinical experiences.

Humanities teaching in nursing education has the potential to facilitate professional growth and improve patient care. To fit into crowded curricula and to have the greatest effect, humanities teaching needs to be concise and clinically relevant. We describe a humanities educational program, incorporated within undergraduate nursing students' first acute care clinical semester, that uses expressive and didactic methods supported by educational, clinical, or theoretical evidence. Student evaluations of the educational program were uniformly favorable. The range and depth of students' feedback demonstrate the educational and emotional effects that are possible when humanities content is taught during clinical experiences.