Nurses' Experiences of Managing and Management in a Critical Care Unit

Area of Science:

• Nursing Management
• Organizational Culture
• Critical Care Nursing

Background:

• Investigates nurses' experiences managing and being managed within Australian critical care.
• Explores cultural practices and knowledge within nursing management discourses.
• Highlights the need to validate nurses' lived experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a platform for nurses to share their management experiences.
• To analyze the cultural and knowledge-based discourses in nursing management.
• To identify how nurses navigate dominant and subjugated discourses.

Main Methods:

• Ethnographic study utilizing direct participant observation.
• Analysis of participant interviews and reflective field notes.
• Application of critical, feminist, and postmodern theoretical perspectives.

Main Results:

• Identified nine distinct mobile subject positions for nurses.
• Revealed how nurses are shaped by or resist dominant discourses.
• The
• junior novice
• subject position emerged as a major finding.

Conclusions:

• Nurses, influenced by patriarchal and organizational discourses, perpetuate submissive identities.
• Interprofessional relations often lack individual valuing and undermine self-esteem.
• Further research is needed to address these ingrained discourses in nursing management.