Biomedical subjects

Heather Gibb

Publications and source records attributed to Heather Gibb.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

Developing support for remote nursing education through workplace culture that values learning.

OBJECTIVE: The present study presents the cultural challenges of introducing workplace learning associated with a nursing educational pathway into small rural hospitals. DESIGN AND INTERVENTION: Focus groups were conducted before and after an action research intervention to determine whether changes in understanding and values on learning had occurred. SETTING: Eight multipurpose services or small rural hospitals across rural New South Wales were involved in the intervention. SUBJECT: Nursing staff from eight rural health facilities participated voluntarily in the present study. OUTCOMES: Two outcomes were achieved: The development of mentoring, locally tailored to the needs and expectations of nursing participants; Values and understanding of learning were enhanced, with advanced levels of learning being identified and demonstrated by staff in the practice setting. CONCLUSION: Small rural hospitals can provide opportunities for advanced clinical learning. Forms of major mentoring are, however, critical to this process.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed2003

Abnormal Pap test results and the rurality factor.

OBJECTIVE: To review the published socio-cultural determinants that put women in rural areas at greater risk of having an abnormal Pap test result. DESIGN: Literature review. CONCLUSION: An Australian woman is at increased risk of developing cervical dysplasia if she lives in a rural area, identifies as an Indigenous Australian or is from a non-English speaking country. Being aged over 50 years, increases the risk of cervical cancer but not cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia (CIN) 1, which peaks in the 20-24 year age group. Other connections with cervical dysplasia relate to a woman or her partner's sexual history, her nutritional status and possibly even her personality type. Smoking, social isolation, high negative life change events and having lived a 'troubled' life are all identified in the literature as increasing a woman's risk of having an abnormal Pap test result. Receiving an abnormal Pap test result often leads to feelings of fear, anxiety, guilt, shock, vulnerability, powerlessness, depression, shame and feeling dirty for the woman concerned. Compounding these negative feelings are social, practical and financial difficulties that have to be addressed. It is argued that social and medical models of health must complement each other to improve the well being of rural women experiencing an abnormal Pap result.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Rural community mental health nursing: a grounded theory account of sole practice.

This paper examines community mental health in rural and remote settings, characterized as sole practice. Using a grounded theory approach, the research reported here explored how meanings of health and health care are advanced within the context of rural mental health care, dominated and in the main led by nurses. Five different practice sites in rural New South Wales were involved. The study articulated a model of therapeutics that foregrounds a relationship of intense professional intimacy and trust against a context of geographical disadvantage and professional isolation. The meanings of the relationship are elaborated in terms of unusually high levels of responsibility, professional ingenuity, powerlessness and the independent and risky character of life in the bush.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Culture of rural nursing practice: a critical theoretical analysis of determinants of power in nursing.

OBJECTIVE: This paper investigates the culture of workplace learning within a study of eight small hospitals in rural New South Wales (NSW), Australia. DESIGN: The study used a focus group method of data collection, undertaken before then after a series of interventions designed to nurture a culture that supports learning within the rural health care setting. PARTICIPANTS: Student AINs, AINs, ENs and RNs from any of the eight hospitals. CONCLUSION: Framed within a critical social perspective it applies a theory of culture to understand the determinants of social divisiveness that was occurring between different levels of the nursing workforce. These results are further analysed within a theoretical discussion of culture and power in nursing.

Education, Nursing, Continuing↗