Abstract: This thesis presents a study of a nursing 'practicum' from the perspectives of nursing students and staff 'buddies'. A grounded theory approach was used to interview six nursing students during their transition placement, the final practicum of their Diploma in Nursing programme. Five staff nurse buddies selected by the students were also interviewed. An informal, conversational interview was used and data was analysed from an experiential learning perspective.This study differs from others because it focuses on the clinical experience component of nursing education, 'practicum', and includess practitioners viewpoints. At present there is a re-evaluing of experience within nursing education with a new emphasis on practice-based learning. Experience-based learning is becoming increasingly acceptable within academia as a 'seamless' education system evolves.I identified three learning stages which students' experience during practicum – initiation, exploration and consolidation. The key stage for learning through experience was exploration. Learning during this stage was predominantly buddy-directed which contradicted the self-directed curriculum design. Students and staff nurses however agreed that communication between them during this stage enabled the development of 'competence'.The learning /teaching approach used by the students and staff nurses made it difficult for students to translate their 'all-round' competencies during practicum. It is argued that it is the useof such competencies during practicum which enable nursing students to become autonomous in the attitudinal and epistemological sense. The predominantly 'technical training' approach adopted was understood by students and staff nurses to be reinforced by 'silence' from tutors.Restructuring gives the opportunity for nursing to develop an ';investigative', enquiry-based approach in practice. There will increasingly be an emphasis on practice-based research as a result of the implementation of degree and post-graduate programmes in nursing. This study highlights some aspects of nursing education and it's relationship with practice which can assist the development of such an approach

Abstract: This research project, a descriptive study using narratives, explored the application of cultural safety theory and philosophy to clinical nursing practice. This application was illustrated through the stories of four experienced Pakeha,Tauiwi registered nurses in Aotearoa/New Zealand, who described their realities of applying cultural safety to daily clinical practice. The incentive for this study had been identified in light of the current political climate, pragmatic realities and in keeping with the current state of knowledge.Cultural safety was first identified by Maori nursing students and subsequently described and articulated by Maori nurses, as being a potential solution to improving Maori health statistics in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Many Maori and Pakeha/Tauiwi in this country accept that the Treaty of Waitangi, a covenant signed between Maori and the Crown in 1840, is the incentive for giving cultural safety status and credibility. While the Nursing Council of New Zealand has supported this concept and made it a requirement for all nursing education, there is little literature written concerning its application to practice from a Pakeha/Tauiwi perspective.The perceptions and insights of these nurses were heard when they were invited to describe how they saw cultural safety as part of their daily clinical practice and recount their struggles, realities, practice and experience. The literature review supported the use of narratives as an appropriate method for this study. The philosophy and assumptions of narrative appear to match the oral tradition of nursing and thus it was considered possible to contemplate the fit of narrative to nursing research.The stories of these nurses, gave examples of best nursing practice in which cultural safety was integral to practice, and provided exemplars of possible beginnings and possible endings. The depiction of cultural safety in practice surfaced as the weaving of four themes which were consistent in all the stories – themes of reflection, reverencing, the environment, and hidden blessings and healing. The research evidence suggested that cultural safety was visible in practice in many diverse ways; it emphasised the complexity of the concept; accented its evolving status; and identified a relative consistency in defining cultural safety despite the varied contexts of practice.Although this study was limited by the small sample, the findings indicated that there were potential implications for nursing education, research, nurses and nursing practice as well as for other health care providers working in the current health care system. They suggested that actions from nurse educators, nurse managers, health care managers and clinical nurses themselves, would be needed to ensure that cultural safety continued to be part of nursing practice and contribute to the improvement of all health statistics in this country as well as to encourage an increased development in the focus on Maori health issues.Further nursing research suggested by the findings include studies to appraise cultural safety from a patient's perspective, and consideration given to the evaluation and assessment of nurses and their culturally safe practice. In addition, exploration and research could ascertain the benefits and rewards of culturally safe practice and identify ongoing educational needs as well as examining the views of other members of the multi-discipline team

Abstract: There has been a great deal written about the efforts of the nursing profession to achieve full professional status but little about individual nurses' aspirations in seeking this goal. A group of 6 co-researchers, myself included, looked at this perceived gap in nurses' dreams for the profession.The philosophical underpinnings of the research were feminist and reflected postmodern feminist and some radical feminist concepts. This philosophical positions guided our research to uncover the knowledge of how we actively construct ourselves into dominant social values. This means we were searching for how our dreams were constructed and how we reflected the values of society in the way we produced our dreams. Peace and Power (Chinn & Wheeler, 1989) was used to guide the group interaction and Memory-Work (Hague, 1987) for data collecting and analysis. The co-researchers wrote individual stories about their dreams for the nursing profession. Collective analysis of the stories occurred in order to uncover the was in which the dreams were constructed. From this collective analysis the individual co-researchers redrafted their stories. Each redraft contained new insights, motives and actions of ourselves and others, forgotten experiences and inconsistencies, as a means of identifying and questioning dominant ideologies. The aim was to move towards empowerment through making the unconscious conscious.Four common dreams emerged from analysis of the stories: the first was that individual nurses want full professional status and autonomy; the second asked the nurses to care and support each other; a high standard of patient and nursing-focussed care was the third dream; and the fourth was for continuing education and knowledge to be shared between nurses. Although the dreams were common across the group it was found that the dreams varied in their construction. The dreams for each group member reflected multiple realities that emerged from different contexts, influenced by historical and socially dominant cultural values.Through studying and theorising our dreams for the nursing profession, we increased our understanding of how they were shaped so that we were able to initiate change and make our dreams become a reality. This has implications for the nursing profession. We live our lives collectively, as nurses and women, as others influence our being and reality. Although others influence us, it is each individual nurse who contributes to actively construct her/himself in to the dominant cultural values held by society and therefore up to each individual to initiate change. If nurses are able to make dreams a reality then positive changes will occur within the profession; I.e. decreased staff turnover, increased morale and increased quality in patient care

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

Abstract: There's Nobody There, is a qualitative study of the practise of caring for confused elderly people. It examines the implications of community care for social policy. It presents an account of the everyday lives of twenty eight family members who care for people with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia. It shows that community care like other forms of care, carries a cost that the burden is largely borne by the carers themselves, rather than by the State