Against intimacy: focusing on the task in hand in PhD supervision

Worldwide, more nurses are undertaking doctoral studies now than at any other time. However, there is little high-quality evidence focused on investigating successful completion of such studies. Instead there is considerable literature dedicated to untested assumptions about the nature of the supervisory relationship. This article reflects on three critical incidents to show that the key to successful PhD completion may have much less to do with the supervisory relationship than this literature assumes. Success is rather grounded in clear understanding of how all the pertinent tasks fit together. A free online interactive resource is introduced as one method of facilitating this clarity within the supervisory relationship. The effectiveness of this resource could be tested, thereby generating meaningful data for PhD students and their supervisors.