Abstract: This article explores some of the functions of psychiatric diagnosis and the implications this has for mental health nursing care. It critiques the psychiatric diagnosis as a categorisation process that maintains oppressive power relations within society, by establishing and enforcing normality through gender, culture and class biases. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is used to illustrate some of the inherent biases in the diagnostic process. The author argues that mental health nursing practice needs to demonstrate an awareness of the power relations inherent in any diagnostic process and make attempts to redress these at both the individual and sociopolitical levels. To create a true patient-centred partnership in mental health nursing, the nursing focus should be on the patient's experience rather than the psychiatric diagnosis with which the experience is attributed. NB this is a reprint of article first published in Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2000 Mar; 31(3), 583-9.

Abstract: This article outlines a model for the nursing role in the chronic health care context of renal replacement therapy. Materials from several streams of literature are used to conceptualise the potential for nursing work in the renal setting as negotiated care. In order to present the role of the renal nurse in this way it is contextualised by viewing the renal setting as a specialised social context constituted by a dominant professional discourse and a contrasting client discourse. While performing specific therapeutic activities in accord with the dominant discourse, renal nurses can develop a relationship with the person living on dialysis, based on responsiveness to their subjective experience reflecting the renal client discourse. In contrast to the language of noncompliance prevalent in the renal setting, nurses can, through their relationship with renal clients, facilitate their attempts to negotiate the requirements of the therapeutic regime into their own personal life situation. Nurses can mediate between the dominant and client discourses for the person living on dialysis. Care describes the quality that nurses actively seek to create in their relationships with clients, through negotiation, in order to support them to live as fully as possible while using renal replacement therapy. The author concludes that within chronic health care contexts, shaped by the acute curative paradigm of biomedicine, the model of nursing work as negotiated care has the potential to humanise contemporary medical technologies by responding to clients' experiences of illness and therapy.

Abstract: The researchers evaluate and compare the organisation of general practice in the UK and New Zealand. A key aim of the Primary Health Care Strategy is a reduction in health inequalities. Locally, some nurse leaders suggest that changing nurse practice employment from general practitioners to Primary Health Organisations will achieve this aim. The authors take lessons from the UK and suggest that nurses organising themselves into peer groups, remuneration of general practices for the attainment of positive patient outcomes, and a statutory duty of clinical governance, all contributed to the development of practice nurses' roles and expansion of numbers of nurse practitioners in general practice. Nurses have become partners with general practitioners in general practice in the UK, which the authors suggest is a much preferable alternative for some than employment by a Primary Health Organisation.

Abstract: This article explores the concept of clinical supervision and outlines a brief history of implications for nursing practice. Models of clinical supervision are outlined and examples of how they may be applicable to the clinical setting of perioperative nursing are provided.

Abstract: The article presents a theoretical model of social consciousness developed from nurses' life histories. A 3-position dialectical framework (acquired, awakened, and expanded social consciousness) makes visible the way people respond to social injustice in their lives and in the lives of others. The positions coexist, are not hierarchical, and are contextually situated. A person's location influences her or his availability for social action. Nurses who could most contribute to challenging social injustices that underpin health disparities are relegated to the margins of mainstream nursing by internal processes of discrimination. The author suggests that more inclusive definitions of “a nurse” would open up possibilities for social change.

Abstract: Notes an absence of nursing practice models focussing on the traditional beliefs of Maori amongst nursing literature. Presents Te Kapunga Putohe (the restless hands) model of Maori centred nursing practice. Illustrates how Maori knowledge and nursing knowledge can be incorporated to deliver nursing care that is both culturally appropriate and can improve the nursing experience for Maori clients.

Abstract: The authors introduce the Kaupapa nursing service at Te Puna Hauora, Tauranga Hospital. It implements an indigenous health model, the Whanaungatanga Model of Care, to guide nursing practice. This paper describes the concept of care it applies to serving its Maori population and the role of the Kaiawhina Social Worker. The authors highlights the interface between primary and secondary care after patients are discharged. The authors address the shortfall of Maori practitioners in the nursing service and the aims of a year-long pre-entry Kaupapa Health Professional Programme.

Abstract: The author reconsiders the meaning of expert, specialist and advanced practice. She proposes that they are distinctive and complementary aspects of every nursing role and suggests a set of attributes for each. Expertise is discussed in terms of the quality of performance, speciality in relation to particularity of performance, and advanced practice with regard to the level of performance.