Patricia Benner, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a professor emerita of nursing in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and an honorary fellow in the Royal College of Nursing,United Kingdom.Christine A. Tanner, RN, PhD, FAAN, is the Youmans-Spaulding Distinguished Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing, Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, Oregon.Catherine A. Chesla, RN, DNSc, FAAN is professor in the Department of Family Health Care Nursing, University of California, San Francisco.

• 1. The Relationship of Theory and Practice in the Acquisition of Skill 2. Entering the Field: Advanced Beginner Practice 3. The Competent Stage: A Time of Analysis, Planning, and Confrontation 4. Proficiency: A Transition to Expertise 5. Expert Practice 6. Impediments to the Development of Clinical Knowledge and Ethical Judgment in Critical Care Nursing7. Clinical Judgment 8. The Social Embeddedness of Knowledge9. The Primacy of Caring and the Role of Experience, Narrative, and Community in Clinical and Ethical Expertise10. Implications of the Phenomenology of Expertise for Teaching and Learning Everyday Skillful Ethical Comportment 11. The Nurse-Physician Relationship: Negotiating Clinical Knowledge12. Implications for Basic Nursing Education13. Implications for Nursing Administration and PracticeAppendicesA. Background and Method 351B. Description of Nurse Informants 373C. Background Questions for Interviews and Observations 375References and Bibliography 383Index 399