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Foucault could have been an operating room nurse
journal contribution
posted on 2002-08-01, 00:00 authored by R Riley, Elizabeth ManiasElizabeth ManiasBACKGROUND: Operating room nursing is an under-researched area of nursing practice. The stereotypical image of operating room nursing is one of task- and technically-orientated aspects of practice, where nurses work in a medical model and are dominated by constraints from outside their sphere of influence. This paper explores the possibility of understanding operating room nursing in a different way. AIM: Using the work of Michel Foucault to analyse the work of operating room nursing, this paper argues the relevance of the framework for a more in-depth analysis of this specialty area of practice. CONTENT: The concepts of power, discipline and subjectivity are used to demonstrate how operating room nursing is constructed as a discipline and how operating room nurses act to govern and construct the specialty. Exemplars are drawn from extensive professional experience, from guidelines of professional operating room nursing associations, as well as published texts. The focus is predominantly on the regulation of space and time to maintain the integrity of the sterile surgical field and issues of management, as well as the use of the ethical concept of the 'surgical conscience'. CONCLUSIONS: This form of analysis provides a level and depth of inquiry that has rarely been undertaken in operating room nursing. As such, it has the potential to provide a much needed, different view of operation room nursing that can only help to strengthen its professional foundations and development.
History
Journal
Journal of advanced nursingVolume
39Issue
4Pagination
316 - 324Publisher
WileyLocation
Chichester, Eng.ISSN
0309-2402Language
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2002, Blackwell Science LtdUsage metrics
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