Collegiality, adaptation and nursing faculty

Many nurse educators in the United Kingdom are currently faced with the challenge of change, of leaving the culture of the British National Health Service and integrating into the culture of tertiary education. This paper reports on a study of the process of developing collegial relationships in the context of a new collaboration to develop a combined curriculum for nurses within a tertiary institution. The aims of the study were to analyse this process of integration and to identify the conditions that enhanced the development of collegiality between members of the nursing group. The case study centred on the analysis of data collected on video during unstructured interviews with the five members of the group. Data were analysed using Burnard's method of thematic content analysis. The paper argues that during the transition from the National Health Service to tertiary education, individual nurse educators and their managers must address problems related to issues such as 'ingroupism', nursing the students, perceived difference between nurse academics and other academics, and expectations of power-relationships.