06/19/2026
Recently, I took a group of undergraduate nursing students on a guided tour of the Tenement Museum in New York City. For 90 minutes, we stepped into the lives of immigrant families whose stories transformed abstract concepts into lived realities. Whether she realized it or not, our exceptional tour guide did more than help us imagine life in a crowded tenement; she quietly taught us the art of slow looking—a much-needed antidote to the hurried, smartphone-driven pace of modern life.
Learning about immigrant narratives, I recognize myself, because I, too, am an immigrant from the Philippines. The personal and shared stories we create and tell are the indelible fingerprints we leave behind. When patients share their stories and bare their souls to us, what are they asking? Is it a cry for help? An invitation to connect? A search for understanding? Perhaps it is something simpler and instructive: "I hope you are listening." Read the article The Fingerprint we leave behind by Fidel Lim, RN -
American Nurse Journal, the official, clinically and career-focused journal of the American Nurses Association (ANA).