[talaxandra]

As some of you know, I've recently undertaken a Masters, looking at why some ICU nurses talk to their brain dead patients (http://allnurses.com/forums/f69/do-you-talk-to-brain-dead-patients-67338.html). As part of my justification for researching this topic, which hasn't previously been examined, I said:

It might be thought that the reason this area of nursing practice has not previously been studied is because it is not relevant or important. I disagree. Nursing research by nurses tends to concentrate on the quantifiable (like hand-washing frequency [citation] or comparison of wound dressings [citation], demography (attrition[citation], aging nursing population [citation], and aspects of nursing practice and policy. Though important topics in their own right, this focus on nursing work fails to examine nursing culture.

In the footnote I said that articles in nursing journals about nursing culture tend to focus on making changes [with 2 references], rather than examining the exisiting culture in a positive way [1 reference, which basically says just that].

One of my examiners has challenged this position, saying that this my be the case in ICU, but not in nursing literature generally.

Although I'm a nurse, my post grad qualifications aren't in nursing, and I'm therefore less familiar with nursing literature than he is. I certainly am not in a position to disagree. I was wondering if any of you know of articles (particulalry by nurses and/or in nursing journals) which examine aspects of nursing culture from a more sociological perspective, so that I can appropriately amend my thesis before final binding.

Thank you

[Thunderwolf]

Moving thread to Intensive Care Unit (MICU and SICU) to foster input.