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Biomedical subjects

Brenda L Cameron

Publications and source records attributed to Brenda L Cameron.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Towards understanding the unpresentable in nursing: some nursing philosophical considerations.

While nursing practice embodies certain observable and sometimes habitual actions, much inheres in these actions that is not immediately discernible. Taking on Lyotard's exegesis of the unpresentable, I undertake an analysis of the unpresentable as it occurs in nursing practices. The unpresentable is a place of alterity often excluded from dominant discourses. Yet this very alterity is what practising nurses face day after day. Drawing from two nursing situations, one from a hermeneutic phenomenological study and the other from the literature, I elucidate the unpresentable from a nursing point of view. Evoking Lyotard as well as selected philosophers from the continental philosophical tradition, I also question whether nursing in its present discourse is capable of responding to the unpresentable in nursing situations. Through the philosophical stance of presentation and representation, I delineate the urgent need to bring the otherness of the unpresentable into our nursing discourse. Nurses in practice confront a wide array of human differences and diversities and come to the realization that no framework alone can ever really have primacy over the multiform presentations of human suffering that so strikingly evoke alterity.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2005

Challenges and opportunities of international clinical practica.

International clinical practica are a strategy to integrate a global dimension in nursing curricula and achieve culturally sensitive nursing practice. In this paper, a review of the history and development of international practica for nursing students is presented, and research evaluating the effectiveness and impact of international experiences is analyzed. A description of experiences working with Canadian nursing students is used to highlight the challenges and opportunities inherent to international clinical practica. International student experiences involving clinical practica pose challenges that are additional to, and often more complex than, those faced in traditional international, course-based exchanges. The significant opportunities, however, continue to make international student practica a desirable and positive experience for Canadian nursing students.

Canada↗
PubMed2004

Ethical moments in practice: the nursing 'how are you?' revisited.

In seeking for an understanding of ethical practices in health care situations, our challenge is always both to recognize and respond to the call of individuals in need. In attuning ourselves to the call of the vulnerable other an ethical moment arises. Asking 'how are you?' in health care practice is our very first possibility to learn how a particular person finds herself or himself in this particular situation. Here, 'how are you?' shows itself as an ethical question that opens up a relational space that calls forth a response. It is a way to understand the situated moments in which we are already that enables us to act respectfully. Our ethical frameworks assist us in trying to decide what is the right thing to do given a set of circumstances. Yet there is a prior step that already calls us to ethical attention; this is when we ask 'how are you?', which transforms a seemingly small interaction into an ethical moment. 'How are you?' is a question that turns us back to who we are as health care professionals and calls us to be more deeply attentive to the moment. When we sincerely ask 'how are you?' we enact our ethical commitments to one another.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed2003

Meanings and practical knowledge of people with long-term urinary catheters.

The lived experience of people with long-term indwelling urethral catheters is described and interpreted. This hermeneutic (interpretive) phenomenologic study used Merleau-Ponty's philosophy and van Manen's methodology. Fourteen adults aged 35 to 95 years who had worn a catheter more than 4 months (range = 6 months to 18 years) comprised the purposive sample. Data were obtained through audiotaped and transcribed interviews conducted in the homes of participants. The study provided both meanings and practical knowledge related to the experience of catheter use. Despite its drawbacks, participants recognized the device's value in their daily lives and weighed its positive features against concerns associated with long-term use. Individual meanings included making aesthetic harmony with a new catheter, the convenience of the catheter compared with the inconvenience of incontinence, and the catheter as a symbol and reminder of one's mortality. Practical knowledge related to participants' awareness of their catheter needs and practices, such as features of supplies, intervals for changes, catheter insertions, emptying the urine bag, and changes associated with sex. Knowledge of the lived experience with a urinary catheter can assist nurses in sensitive decision making about care and help them become better patient advocates.

Activities of Daily Living↗