Charting a course : an exploration of the construction of nursing practice
Date
1996
Authors
Amos, Wendy
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Abstract
This thesis examines the ways in which nurses' work is embedded in the institutional hierarchy of the Canadian health care system. The study uses data from a project sponsored by the Registered Nurses' Association of British Columbia. The project, as conceived by the Association, established a standalone nursing centre in a small community on Vancouver Island. The RNABC described the project as one which would encourage nurses to experiment with new and innovative forms of nursing practice. The project was intended to provide a setting in which nurses could demonstrate their practice outside of the usual constraints of traditional health care settings. The study asked "how will nurses structure their relationships and networks and what nursing practice will emerge?" The experiences of local nurses working in the project are analyzed using the methodology known as institutional ethnography. In this method the stories of individual nurses are taken as entry points through which the wider network of social relations may be explored. Links not visible to those engaged in the work are explicated leading to an enhanced understanding of how local events are shaped by extra local control. The study argues that nurses' actions and choices are embedded in the social relations of Canadian health care, and that the regulatory function of the professional association itself
iil
nurses within health care. It draws critical attention to how
nurses participate in their own subordination in taken for
granted ways.