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Biomedical subjects

T Rudge

Publications and source records attributed to T Rudge.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1996

(Re) writing ethnography: the unsettling questions for nursing research raised by post-structural approaches to 'the field'.

Positivist ethnographic research situates the participant observer in an objectivist position towards the field. Using post-structural perspectives to analyse the field challenges and unsettles objectivist assumptions underpinning ethnography. Neither is merging of the two approaches completely unproblematic. A crucial element in a coherent amalgam centres around resolution of potential contradictions emanating from the place of field notes in ethnographic research, and the position of the researcher (author) vis-a-vis such notes. Contemporary approaches to field notes maintain that such notes are not an objective description of the field, unaffected by the voice of the researcher. Rather, observational records are to be regarded as text, with characteristics in common with all texts. The ethnographic record is constituted as much by the positionality of the researcher as by the research participants. The nurse researcher can be viewed as participant in the constitution of the field. In unsettling and challenging taken-for-granted understandings about nursing practice, I am affirming the centrality of the position of the nurse in nursing research.

Anthropology, Cultural↗
PubMed1995

Validation of cues for competencies of beginning level mental health nurses: an exploratory study in South Australian mental health agencies.

This paper outlines competency statements and their validation in mental health nursing. It describes: the background to the study, developments in perspectives on professional competency, the research process, the results, and issues that arose out of the research. The authors suggest that such research allows for the exploration of both nursing practice and the context in which psychiatric/mental health nursing is practised. This research has highlighted the complexity of mental health nursing practice in Australia, and an area of research that needs further development.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1994

The panopticon re-visited?: an exploration of the social and political dimensions of contemporary health care and nursing practice.

Insights from critical and postmodern perspectives are used to explore some of the aspects of contemporary nursing practice and health care which are taken for granted. Such an exploration begins to deconstruct the power relations implicit within the socio-political context of the health care arena in which nursing operates. In particular, the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault is used to explore the discourses of the various health care "experts". Aspects of women's health and nursing practice are used as exemplars of the limiting effects of such discourses.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1994

Nursing as textually mediated reality.

Nursing and nursing practice both construct and are in turn constructed by the context in which they operate. Texts plays a central part in that construction. As such, nursing and nursing practice can be considered to represent a reality that is textually mediated. This paper explores the notion of nursing as a textually mediated reality and offers the reader the possibility of engaging in reflection on what implications this has for nursing and their own nursing practice. The analyses provided draw on aspects of the work of both Foucault and Derrida. Foucault's notion of discourse provides a vehicle for the exploration of nursing as textually mediated, as does Derrida's concept of binary oppositions. The paper thus illustrates some of the possibilities afforded nursing by poststructural analyses. In particular it does this by exploring one of the central textual constructions, impacting on the way that nursing and nursing practice are conceptualized, the mind/body binary opposition.

Communication↗
PubMed1994

Been there, done that? Consciousness raising, critical theory and nurses.

The concept of consciousness raising has become somewhat tired and jaded in nursing literature. Indeed the notion of consciousness raising and its associated catchcry of 'making the personal political', is almost so hackneyed as to be somewhat unfashionable and clichéd in the 1990s. This is due, at least in part, to the fact that consciousness raising emanated from the women's movement of the 1960s and was originally directed at linking the personal and the political, but in nursing emphasis has often been given to the personal with little recourse to the political. It is thus timely and important to draw on insights afforded by critical perspectives and synthesize them anew with the tenets of consciousness raising in order to make explicit the power relations and structural oppression implicit in the nursing context. If consciousness raising, and the making of the personal political, are combined with the theoretical insights provided by critical theorists such as Faoucault (1977, 1980), it is possible to re-orient and re-energise the somewhat trite and worn catchcry of the personal as political.

Awareness↗
PubMed1993

A multi-generational staff development model for registered nurses.

The paper focuses on a significant nursing initiative for staff development undertaken in South Australia. The initiative arose out of Health Commission funded consultancy which sought to develop a staff development model for registered nurses. The outcome of this consultancy was the development of a multi-generational staff development model, known as the DPS Staff Development Model. This model provides a framework through which staff development activities can be analysed, consolidated and extended. The paper outlines the DPS Staff Development Model, the context in which it was developed and its implications for nursing staff development programmes. The development of the model was premised on a number of assumptions. These included the need to ensure flexibility, longevity, offer a perspective of staff development that is realistic and practical, and facilitate in registered nurses a sense of ownership and personal responsibility with respect to their development. The model comprises six broad areas of focus: the Career Development Model for registered nurses in South Australia, the structure of the model, locations in which staff development occurs, elements which assist in maintaining skills and knowledge, elements which enhance growth and development and the processes and relationships necessary for the successful implementation of staff development programmes.

Career Mobility↗
PubMed1992

Reflections on Benner: a critical perspective.

This paper examines the theoretical perspective of Patricia Benner (1984; 1989) as outlined in two of her recent works. The evaluative criteria used are the critical perspective developed by Carr and Kemmis (1986). The interpretive strengths of her work are identified and extended by comparison with the work of Lawler (1991). Problems in Benner's analyses are found to centre around the weaknesses of the interpretive perspective. An analysis of the structural constraints that act to distort the interpretation of nurses' work is offered as an alternative. An evaluation is given of the relevance to practice of Benner's work.

Humans↗