What makes a good nurse ‘very good’?

Despite our best efforts, knowing the exact components which make up a good nurse remains elusive. It is an impossible project, one destined for failure or ridicule. Nightingale’s sentiments that a good nurse is biologically preordained; that ‘every woman makes a good nurse’ (Nightingale1860:3) or that ‘a good nurse is uncomplaining even in the face of unnecessary hardship’ provide prime examples (Fenwick 1938:47). Perhaps we need not pursue the question so vigorously or elaborate it so precisely and just accept there is a spectrum where a very good nurse is broadly someone who is in their element in what they do? And a bad nurse is someone who is doing work they just wandered in to? It is difficult to know. It seems to me the only thing we know with any degree of certainty is that a good nurse responds satisfactorily to expectations of those in authority at any particular point in time.