| Records |
Author  |
O'Reilly, A.F. |
| Title |
Relinquishing personhood in dementia: Discordant discourses: A nurse's inquiry |
Type |
|
| Year |
2002 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
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| Keywords |
Dementia; Nursing; Nurse-patient relations; Relationships |
| Abstract |
This thesis traces the journey of the author's inquiry into family members' experience of the relinquishment of the personhood of a loved one with a dementia; a journey in which she reports that her own prior understandings were significantly challenged. The study was prompted by her experience of working in the area of dementia care and hearing, in the course of the working day, comments such as 'there's nobody there' made in relation to someone suffering from severe dementia. Such comments appear to imply that the person of the dementia sufferer in some way is no longer present. They are comments which relate to the very nature of personhood. The study takes impetus from the fact that the ways in which nurses view the personhood of dementia sufferers has significant consequences for the ways in which they respond to dementia sufferers and their families. This thesis, which retells the stories of four family members who each have a loved one with a dementia illness, reveals that rather than there being a unified concept of personhood in dementia, and in spite of the fact that particular understandings of dementia and personhood dominate our cultural conversations, in their day to day lives these four family members managed and made sense of their experience through particular and different ways of looking at the impact dementia has on the personhood of dementia sufferers. Not all did, in fact, relinquish the personhood of their family member. In their lived lives, the four research participants had recourse, each in different ways, to multiple discourses of personhood. For some, in addition to loss, there was also unexpected gain. This finding necessitated and shaped further inquiry into discourse and the role of discourse in shaping, constraining and opening up possibilities for meaning, and into the two substantive areas of dementia and personhood. Nurses work closely alongside the family of dementia sufferers who are daily faced with the challenge of managing and making meaning of that situation. It is critically important that they are able to recognise, validate and support the variety of needs that family members have. Nurses, whose education is traditionally based on a biomedical framework, are nevertheless often required to mediate between different understandings. Not only do they need currency of knowledge in the rapidly changing biomedical field of dementia, but they need also an understanding of the role and the power of discursive constructions of both dementia and personhood. Such understanding will provide insight into alternate ways of understanding these concepts. However, although such understanding is critical for nurses working in this area, the author suggests that nursing literature has not brought these discussions to the fore. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 792 |
Serial |
776 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
O'Malley, J. |
| Title |
Critical social analysis of acute institutionally based mental health nursing following an action research project |
Type |
|
| Year |
2001 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
NZNO Library, Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
|
| Keywords |
Psychiatric Nursing; Hospitals; Quality of health care |
| Abstract |
This study using action research involving twelve registered nurses worked toward improving nursing care in an acute mental health in-patient service. Following focus groups with consumers, families, nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals, the action research group developed projects over eighteen months to improve continuity and consistency of nursing care. There was a subsequent restructuring of nursing service to better define leadership, accountability and to strengthen care delivery. The second half of the thesis involves a critical social analysis of the research data and produces a theory of mental health nursing which, the author suggests, has wide application in practice. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ |
Serial |
1133 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
Noble-Adams, R. |
| Title |
Being and becoming an exemplary nurse: An authentic journey |
Type |
|
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
|
Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
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| Keywords |
Nursing philosophy; Nursing; Education |
| Abstract |
The aims of this study were to illuminate the joint constructions of exemplary nurses and their lived experiences of being and becoming one. Inherent in being 'exemplary' was the notion of 'becoming', which involved the integration of knowledge and experiences through reflecting on the day-to-day of 'being a nurse'. Being exemplary was not about perfection but learning from every experience and integrating these into becoming. The author developed a creative qualitative and participatory method. Ten exemplary nurses were recruited and interviewed three times. They also provided supplementary data such as photos, poetry and writings. Analysis occurred through first and second level categorising and the use of writing as method. Writing became a way of knowing – assisting discovery and allowing reflection on the data in order to connect the categories and themes together in a coherent and workable whole. The author reports that the above method led to the following emergent findings. The pivotal construct was Authentic Being, through living a reflective life, surrounded by the major constructs of Love of Nursing, Making a Difference, Critical Friends, Walking the Talk and Backpack patients. These constructs directed a specific and comprehensive review of both the philosophical and nursing literature. This review was not used to expand or enlarge the findings but to enlighten, illuminate and clarify. Significant philosophical ideas were extended, developed and synthesised with the findings. The author suggests that the new knowledge that emerged from this research has profound implications for everyday nursing practice, undergraduate and post graduate nursing education, and for Charge Nurses and Senior Nurses, who are of vital importance as role models, mentors and critical friends. The results are significant and are important for nurses and the nursing profession and contribute to, and advance, nursing knowledge. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ |
Serial |
729 |
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| Author |
Nelson, C.M. |
| Title |
Nursing the stranger you know |
Type |
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| Year |
1998 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington, Library – Depar |
| Volume |
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Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
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| Abstract |
Nursing the Stranger You Know demonstrates how combining aspects of nursing theory, the work of Ken Wilber, a leading writer in the field of transpersonal psychology and my own reflections have enhanced how I am able to experience and practice nursing in a primary health care setting.This study acknowledges and values the power of the connections which link us all together. The greatest strength of this work is that it shows, through the use of personal writing, how it is possible to nurse beyond the present and beyond the obvious when clinical, theoretical and self knowledge are all equally respected and incorporated into nursing practice |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 197 |
Serial |
197 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
Mulcahy, D.M. |
| Title |
Journeys cross divides: Nurses and midwives' experiences of choosing a path following separation of the professions |
Type |
|
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
|
Pages |
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| Keywords |
Midwifery; Nursing; Policy; Careers in nursing |
| Abstract |
In 2003 the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act was introduced and established separate regulatory authorities for nursing and midwifery. This study is designed to explore the experiences of dually registered practitioners affected by this divide, as now there are two separate and possible paths, and two corresponding sets of competencies to fulfil. The design for this qualitative descriptive study utilised the written and oral narratives of three practitioners affected by this professional regulation and demonstrated its impact on their career development. Individual storytelling, as narrative, provided a theoretical lens aiding insight into their experience and pattern of decision making. In addition, symbolic consideration of the study data was provided by collective storytelling via the perennial myth of the hero journey. Shifting professional ground following the Health Practitioners Competence Act 2003 generated a focus for the inquiry into practitioners' modes of adjustment. For the practitioners in the study, transition between the occupational roles of nursing and midwifery comprised the possible career trajectories. A status passage, as the process of change from one social status to another, is described and includes the transitional experience of anticipation, expectation, contrast, and change. The author suggests that the findings from this research provide illumination of the nuances of professional decision making as a lived experience, and highlight how these practitioners dealt with shifting meaning, values, awareness, choices, and relationships. Aspects of group agency and identity, change management, and professional role transition were revealed. Life pattern, revealed through narrative, was an important research construct for exposing the ways in which the participants negotiated change, and displayed the function of their thinking and reasoning through dilemmas. Perception of individual and group identity revealed attitudes of esteem to the dominant discourse, and exposed dynamic tension between work patterns and life stage. Renegotiating arrangements of personal and professional commitment resulted from this dynamic interplay, and the relationship to stress and burnout was explored. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 700 |
Serial |
686 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
Mote, J.A. |
| Title |
Quilting conversations: a reflective account of women growing up on the West Coast and going nursing in the 1930's and 1940's |
Type |
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| Year |
1998 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library, Grey Ba |
| Volume |
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Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
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| Abstract |
This is an oral herstory of two West Coast Women in conversation with a contemporary, and all are nurses. The conversations are presented as whole patterns which are quilted together to form a story within a story. I have woven in my story, with the commonality of being a nurse and having lived on the West Coast for five years.Until the 1960s, women on the West Coast had had very little written about their lives and the nursing records on the Coast were very limited, even in the 1990s. The women in this study conveyed the childhood memories and the nursing days, as they reflected on a training that was strictly disciplined, hierarchical in a hospital based apprentice system.The opportunity to do this project has enabled me to explore some of the aspects of the lives of women on the West Coast, particularly through the eyes of two wonderful women. Their contribution has been particularly valuable, in that they were able to convey how it was for them as children, and also the experiences of their mother and other women. Both were nurses who trained at Grey River Hospital between 1933 and 1946, and they were able to recall their nursing days on the Coast and make a contribution to West Coast history.It has enabled me to rediscover my own nursing story and to gain insight into the conversations that will inspire my nursing, and enable me to hand on stories to other nurses. This thesis will also be of interest to nurses of the future, reflecting on the past and experiencing how it was then |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 172 |
Serial |
172 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
Morrison, M. |
| Title |
Posthuman pathology: A postmodern art project located in critical care |
Type |
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| Year |
2003 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Intensive care nursing; Nursing philosophy; Culture; Technology |
| Abstract |
The author's art project “Posthuman Pathology” is a postmodern examination of the resolutely modernist culture of critical care medicine. She uses conceptual art practices in conjunction with the techniques of anti-aesthetics in order to dismantle, open out and critique ideas which are foundational to the culture of critical care. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 580 |
Serial |
566 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
Mitchell, M.H. |
| Title |
Clinical decision-making processes in emergency nursing |
Type |
|
| Year |
2005 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Emergency nursing; Education; Clinical decision making |
| Abstract |
The aim of this research paper is to explore the processes of clinical decision-making in relation to emergency nurses and to examine the educational requirements for the development of clinical decision-making skills. Clinical decision-making is foundational to professional nursing practice. It is the expectation of the profession and the organisations in which nurses work that appropriate clinical decision-making will occur. Patients also rightly expect, when being cared for by nurses, that the clinical decisions pertaining to their care will be optimal. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 592 |
Serial |
578 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
Mitchell, D.F. |
| Title |
Is it possible to care for the “difficult” male? A study exploring the interface between gender issues, nursing practice and men's health |
Type |
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| Year |
1999 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
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Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Male; Nurse-patient relations; Gender |
| Abstract |
This thesis is about caring for males, especially those males who could be considered “difficult” to care for through their use of behaviours such as silence, anger or defensive humour. This thesis is positioned in the view that these behaviours are often expressions of distress, which typically distance males from those who attempt to care for them. The author suggests that the word “distress” more accurately reflects the theme of the thesis, and it is used throughout the work. This thesis explores the interface between gender issues, nursing practice and caring for males. It is informed by a review of relevant literature and data gathered from a focus group of nine registered nurses. The analysis is framed by questions that are developed from a series of reflections on my personal and professional life. Critical social theory, with its emphases on dominant dialogue, power and emancipation is used to inform and guide this analysis. What is most obvious is the contrast between themes arising from the literature and those arising from the focus group. It appears that the literature, in the main, is critical of males in regard to concepts of masculinity, issues related to gender, and men's health. Males are portrayed as arbitrators of their own misfortune, as deliberately choosing a lifestyle that reflects poorly on their health, their self-expression, and communication with others. Concepts such as power and control over others, both at a societal and individual level, often feature. Conversely, the literature is noticeably lacking in regard to information about the health related experiences of males and about caring for males. In contrast, the participants of the focus group frame their discussion in the positive. For example, they suggest that males are interested in their health but require an environment that supports this expression of interest. They support this by identifying a range of behaviours they believe are effective in caring for males. The participants also suggest that it is the registered nurse rather than the male who manages issues to do with power and control. The thesis concludes that creating and sustaining an environment supportive of, and sensitive to the needs of males, is an activity that requires considerable thought, skill and experience. These areas are not adequately addressed in academic dialogue, research activity, or in the education of registered nurses. The thesis suggests that this situation is inconsistent with an ethic of care and that nursing should make a priority of broadening its research and knowledge base to better understand and care for males. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 503 |
Serial |
489 |
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| Author |
Meldrum, L.B.B. |
| Title |
Navigating the final journey: Dying in residential aged care in Aotearoa New Zealand |
Type |
|
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Palliative care; Older people; Rest homes |
| Abstract |
New Zealand statistics project that the aging population of people aged 65 years and over will more than double in the next decade. This has implications for palliative care providers including hospices and hospitals because long-term inpatient care is not generally provided by hospitals and hospices. When dying patients need long-term care, residential settings become an option. The level of palliative care in these facilities is dependent on staff training and numbers. In general, staff are not trained in palliative care, neither do they provide the multidisciplinary facets that define palliative care as undertaken by hospices. This paper describes a practice development initiative using storytelling as the vehicle for introducing the concept of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) for the dying patient into residential aged care settings. With the emergence of a reflective paradigm in nursing the concept of storytelling as a teaching/learning tool has grown. Many staff in residential care settings come from diverse ethnic backgrounds where for some, English is their second language. Storytelling therefore can be a useful approach for learning because it can increase their communication skills. The author suggests that the Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying patient is a model that can be translated across care settings, hospice, hospital, and community. It can demonstrate a framework that facilitates multiprofessional communication and documentation and embraces local needs, culture and language to empower health care workers to deliver high quality care to dying patients and their family/whanau and carers. This paper also explores the role of a facilitator as an agent of change and discusses how the interplay of evidence, context and facilitation can result in the successful implementation of the LCP into residential aged care settings. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ |
Serial |
683 |
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| Author |
McLean, J.M. |
| Title |
Pushing the boundaries: Relationships with adolescents |
Type |
|
| Year |
2007 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Psychiatric Nursing; Mental health; Adolescents; Nurse-patient relations |
| Abstract |
Therapeutic relationships are central to mental health nursing. The nurse's role in maintaining professional yet therapeutic boundaries within this relationship can be challenging. When therapeutic boundaries are breeched within the nurse adolescent relationship the adolescent's safety within this relationship is compromised. There is currently limited literature on how nurses are managing professional boundaries in relationships with adolescents in this setting. The adolescent's nature is to push boundaries; therefore the nurse needs to be acutely aware of this boundary pushing in everyday practice settings. For the safety of the adolescent and the nurse it is vital the nurse understands her role in managing the professional boundary. This thesis explores, through the use of narrative inquiry, four adolescent mental health nurses' experiences of assessing, understanding and maintaining therapeutic boundaries with adolescents in a mental health setting in New Zealand. The unique and specific implications for adolescent mental health nursing are discussed. Three key themes emerged from the analysis and findings: the importance of the nurse clarifying his/her role; the learning that occurs throughout the practice journey; and the role of the nurse in keeping the adolescent and the nurse safe. These findings highlight the importance of clinical supervision and open communication with senior nurses and mentors, which assist the nurse in monitoring practice. When nurses do not have sufficient knowledge of the fundamental principles of adolescent mental health nursing; such as knowledge and skills in both adolescent development and psychodynamic nursing, they are at risk of boundary crossings. Recommendations from this research include more emphasis on psychodynamic nursing principles in nursing education and nursing practice. There is a need for specialised education for nurses in child and adolescent mental health nursing. Nursing entry to practice programmes for new graduate nurses working in mental health, could assist in providing this. There is a call for further research into therapeutic relationships and professional boundaries in this complex nursing specialty. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 762 |
Serial |
748 |
| Permanent link to this record |
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| Author |
McLauchlan, M.F. |
| Title |
Women's place: an exploration of current discourses of childbirth |
Type |
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| Year |
1997 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
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Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
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| Abstract |
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| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ 345 |
Serial |
345 |
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| Author |
McKerras, R. |
| Title |
Waiting in the emergency department – it doesn't have to take all day |
Type |
|
| Year |
2005 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Emergency nursing |
| Abstract |
This thesis explores the nature of the emergency department environment as it continues to challenge emergency nurses to meet the health needs of an increasingly complex emergency department population. The emergency nurse is also facing conflict and challenge with regard to workplace safety and patient rights. The author suggests that, until recently, very little debate or consideration has been given to the moral dilemmas raised in the ability of emergency department staff to deliver timely and appropriate care in an overcrowded environment. She goes on to say that, in New Zealand, there is no national consistency with regard to the waiting crisis, no national guidelines and no national consensus putting the emergency nurse at risk. This thesis argues the need to acknowledge waiting times as a significant safety issue at a national level as increasing waiting times continue to impact on patient outcomes and nursing practice. It challenges current practice, in particular the role of the emergency nurse and the potential to legitimise expansion of the role to improve the patient experience of waiting in the emergency department. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ |
Serial |
512 |
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| Author |
McKergow, C.R.W. |
| Title |
Preparing to care in the 21st century: A personal search for the meaning of ontological competency through an embodied journey of the soul |
Type |
|
| Year |
2002 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Nursing; Professional development; Breast cancer; Cancer |
| Abstract |
This thesis is a philosophical inquiry that reflects a personal search for the meaning of ontological competency undertaken by the author after developing breast cancer. The text weaves together in creative synthesis, a collection of academic and personal writing undertaken during an MA (Applied) in Nursing degree process. Using the work of Dowling Singe (1999), Watson (1999), and Wilber (1985, 1990, 1991 & 2000), the thesis seeks, through the use of reflective autobiographical inquiry (Johnstone 1999a), to explore the personal meaning-making activities engaged in during this time to throw light upon the nature of nurse / nursing being. Exploring developmental schemata drawn from personal experience and illuminated by theory, nurses and nursing are challenged to become more self-reflective and self-aware. To facilitate the personal and professional growth that underpins notions of ontological competency, various aids in the form of maps and models are provided to support a transformative journey into awareness. From this position of expanding consciousness, the nurse / nursing is encouraged to reach beyond current paradigms, metaparadigms, epistemologies, and restrictive philosophies and to yield to the evolutionary imperative that seeks to prepare for a 21st century clinical practice where caring / healing becomes embodied enactment from “the Ground of All Being”. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ |
Serial |
774 |
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| Author |
McClunie-Trust, P. |
| Title |
Body boundaries and discursive practices in life threatening illness: Narratives of the self |
Type |
|
| Year |
2000 |
Publication |
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Abbreviated Journal |
Victoria University of Wellington Library |
| Volume |
|
Issue |
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Pages |
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| Keywords |
Nurse-family relations; Nursing; Ethics |
| Abstract |
This thesis tells a story from within and between the boundaries of my professional work as a nurse and my private life as the wife of a patient with life threatening illness. The events related in the thesis are told using a technique I have called writing back to myself, where my own journals and stories of the experience of living with life threatening illness provide data for analysis. The reader is invited to participate in these representations and to consider the potential for the skilful practice of nursing which may be read in the stories, and the analysis I have developed from them. I have developed the theoretical and methodological positionings for the thesis from the work of Foucault (1975,1979,1982,1988), Deleuze (1988), Ellis (1995), Richardson (1998) and other writers who utilise genealogical or narrative approaches. The analysis of my own stories in the thesis explores the philosophical and contextual positionings of the nurse as a knowledge worker through genealogies of practice and the specific intellectual work of the nurse. Local and contextual epistemologies are considered as ways of theorising nursing practice through personal knowledge, which is surfaced through the critical analysis of contextual positionings and the process of writing as inquiry. |
| Call Number |
NRSNZNO @ research @ |
Serial |
791 |
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