Abstract: This study examines the discursive formation of professional nursing in one country, as revealed by the history of nursing in New Zealand. Michel Foucault's approach to historical research signifies a different level of analysis from conventional approaches, focusing not on the history of ideas but on an understanding of the present, a history of the present. A genealogical method derived from Foucauldian poststructuralism reveals how different understandings of nursing have occurred and have governed nursing practices and scholarship in different historical contexts. The archaeological investigation in this study reveals two moments of epistemic transformation, that is, two intervals of mutation and discontinuity. The Nightingale era in the 1880s precipitated the first epistemic shift – premodernism to modernism. The transfer of nursing education from hospital based training to the tertiary education sector, followed by the introduction of the baccalaureate degree, precipitated the second epistemic shift in the 1990s, the advent of postmodernism. Encompassing these two epistemes, six historical contexts are identified, where significant disruptions to the nursing discourses overturned previously held assumptions about what constituted a nurse. Each historical context is identified by specific discursive constructs. The first is colonial caring, the second the Nightingale ethos and the third heroic, disciplined obedience. In the fourth context, nursing is framed by, and within, discourses of skilled, humanistic caring, in the fifth, scientific, task focused managerialism, and in the 1990s, the sixth context, by multiple realities in an age of uncertainty.

Abstract: The author presents a project to increase enrolments of women aged 60-69 years in the cervical screening programme. The programme included provision of packages comprising fliers, counter signs, stickers, postcards and pens to 1387 women's groups or locations where women gather. The author collates and analyses calls to the advertised 0800 telephone number, smear tests at the Well Women's Nursing Trust, and enrolment rates on the Cervical Screening Register from June to August 2001.

Abstract: Explores how health informatics can be included in undergraduate health professional education. Uses a case study approach to consideer health informatics within undergraduate nursing education in NZ, leading to the development of nursing informatics guidelines for nurses entering practice.

Abstract: This research is an exploration and interpretation of the lived experiences of family members since they lost a close family member to suicidal death. The findings have implications for nurses and counsellors working in the area of suicide bereavement. Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology was utilised and informed by van Manen's and Benner's work. Data from in-depth interviews with six participants, the researcher's journal entries and published literature were analysed. Findings gave rise to a grief model where suicide survivors moved through four modes of being-in-the-world characterized by 13 lifeworlds or themes. Surviving suicide was a transformative process that in time enabled survivors to discover new ways of understanding and relating to the world.

Abstract: Uses an instrumental case study to explore the role of Advanced Choice of Employment (ACE) on the decision to enter the Nurse Entry to Specialised Practice (NESP). Examines the NESP programme in one DHB in which 14 participants who had accepted positions on NESP without specifying the specialty were given semi-structured interviews, as was the NESP coordinator about the employer experience of NESP. Suggests how education providers and DHBs can prepare ACE applicants for the recruitment process.

Abstract: Reports on the effect of a 'nurse-led' glaucoma clinic at a large metropolitan hospital, in which patients were recruited from specific categories of glaucoma patients on the waiting list. Audits the impact on the waiting list over a two-year period.

Abstract: This article looks at the concept of autonomy particularly in relation to the population of older persons living in residential care settings. It examines the values underpinning the exercise of personal autonomy and notes how individual autonomy may be enhanced or restricted. The implications for gerontological nursing practice are outlined and suggestions offered as to how personal autonomy for older persons living in residential care may be preserved and promoted.

Abstract: The Rating Scale for Aggressive Behaviours in the Elderly (RAGE) is a twenty-one item rating scale, designed specifically to measure aggressive behaviours in the elderly in the psychogeriatric inpatient setting. The purpose of the scale is to qualify the aggressive behaviour, note any changes in the behaviour, and record intervention and/or treatments. This study combines both qualitative and quantitative methods with exploratory and descriptive designs to explore nurses' experiences of using a consistent tool for monitoring, measuring and managing aggressive behaviours. Data gathered over a three month period of implementing RAGE aimed to provide a 'snapshot' of the prevalence, extent and type of aggressive behaviours within the inpatient setting, providing evidence to nurses in developing strategies for the management of aggression. Focus group interviews were used to enable nurses to discuss their experiences of utilising a clinically validated tool in their practice and how this made a difference to their practice. Findings from this research indicate that nurses within the setting found that RAGE is a consistent tool with which nurses can record, measure and monitor aggressive behaviours. Responses from nurses' experiences of utilising RAGE in their practice were varied, with some being unable to articulate how RAGE had made a difference to their practice. Despite this there was an overwhelming positive response for the continued use of RAGE within the setting as a clinically validated tool by which to measure, record and manage aggressive behaviours.