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 question explored in this research project is: What are inpatient registered nurses' perceptions of the factors which influence therapeutic relationship development? The literature reviewed for this project includes the history of interpersonal relationships in nursing; therapeutic relationships; what constitutes these relationships. Also discussed is literature about phenomenology as the underlying theoretical and philosophical position that informs the research method. To answer the research question a single focus group was used to gather data from a group of registered nurses practising in inpatient mental health units. Focus groups as a data collection method produce data and insights that would not be accessible without the group interaction. The key themes to emerge from the data analysis were; time, environment, knowing / self-awareness, compassion and power imbalance / empowerment. These key themes are discussed in relation to the literature and the wider context of the mental health care environment. The contribution this research makes to nursing includes a list of recommendations to nurses, nurse leaders and managers who aim to provide therapeutic mental health unit environments.

Abstract: The author, an occupational health nurse, examines rationale for and effectiveness of the pre-employment assessment, which has become an accepted practice. Reasons for doing assessments include the reduction of risk to the employer from lower accident rates and absenteeism, compliance with legislative requirements and the provision of baseline health measures for general health surveillance. The costs of the screening process, along with the benefits are weighed up, in conjunction with international research in the area. The author found little research on the process in New Zealand. The opportunity for primary health care and health promotion practice as an aspect of this screening is highlighted as an important, though underestimated, benefit. Regular auditing is recommended to ensure that the outcomes of the process meet the criteria required.

Abstract: This article is presented in two parts. In the first, an outline of Heidegger's approach to phenomenology is offered. A basic premise of hermeneutic phenomenology is that people make sense of the world through the narratives they tell to themselves and to others. When the researcher uses this philosophical approach, persons communicate their experiences; the researcher interprets the experience and communicates that understanding in writing. In the second part of the paper, the experiences of four people whose partners were hospitalised out of town is described.

Abstract: A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree
of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY 2003.
This thesis highlights the ways in which the practices of contemporary midwives in
Aotearoa/New Zealand are caught within the intersection of an array of competing discourses. The context for this is the reconstruction of midwifery in Aotearoa/New Zealand as an autonomous feminist profession founded on partnership with women. Interviews and participant observation with midwives, based mainly in one New Zealand city, are the basis of an analysis of the complexity of midwives? praxis as professionals. The analysis draws on insights from critical and feminist approaches to Foucault?s theories of discourse, power and the subject. It includes discussion of the conditions which came to produce and authorise the concept of ?partnership?. Which subjects can speak about partnership, and when? What claims
are made about it? What challenges it?

Abstract: Reports the approach to child and family health nursing in Canada, the US, and the UK. Divides the report into health policy, primary health care services, nursing education and the development of primary health care nurse practitioners, and nursing leadership in primary health care. Part of the Margaret May Blackwell Scholarship Reports series.

Abstract: In New Zealand the clinically focused postgraduate papers and programmes, available through universities and polytechnics, are evaluated from an educational perspective but little evaluation of the implications for practice has been undertaken. This paper is Part One of a report on a study that sought to illuminate the impact of clinically focused postgraduate education on advancing nursing practice. Hermeneutic methodology provided a framework for analysing both the perspectives of nurses who had undergone such education and those who had directly employed and worked alongside these nurses. Emerging themes are described here. In a second article the findings will be discussed in relation to literature. Constraining factors will be identified and strategies designed to maximise the benefits of education for advancing nursing practice will be recommended.

Abstract: This paper outlines some of the special health needs of people from refugee backgrounds who present in the emergency department, and the role of emergency department nurses in improving care for refugee and migrant peoples. Refugees and asylum seekers represent a significant proportion of attendees in emergency departments in Auckland Hospitals. Culture and ethnicity are a major factor to be considered in addressing the health care needs of this population. Other factors such as the physical and psychological sequelae of the refugee experience, health care experience prior to arrival in New Zealand, poverty, language, and the trauma of resettlement also have a major impact on health care seeking behaviours.