A hermeneutic textual analysis of suffering and caring in the peri-operative context

Hermeneutic text interpretation is discussed in this paper as a possible wa y of releasing nurses' knowledge, in order to develop a deeper understandin g of professional caring. The text is a nurse's story, which has been gathe red by means of the critical incident technique. The intention is to elicit the knowledge of professional caring in the stories and the language of ca ring science, which is concealed in a nurse's reality. Hermeneutic text int erpretation through reading a text and having a dialogue with the nurse's r eality will give a voice and a language to silent knowledge.