Nursing is typically understood, and understands itself, as a care-giving occupation. It is through its relationships with patients – whether these are absent, present, good, bad or indifferent – that modern day nursing is defined. Yet nursing work extends far beyond direct patient care activities. Across the spectrum of locales in which they are employed, nurses, in numerous ways, support and sustain the delivery and organisation of health services. In recent history, however, this wider work has generally been regarded as at best an adjunct to the core nursing function, and at worse responsible for taking nurses away from their ‘real work’ with patients. Beyond its identity as the ‘other’ to care-giving, little is known about this element of nursing practice. Drawing on extensive observational research of the everyday work in a UK hospital, and insights from practice-based approaches and actor network theory, the aim of this book is to lay the empirical and theoretical foundations for a reappraisal of the nursing contribution to society by shining a light on this invisible aspect of nurses’ work. Nurses, it is argued, can be understood as focal actors in health systems and through myriad processes of ‘translational mobilisation’ sustain the networks through which care is organised. Not only is this work an essential driver of action, it also operates as a powerful countervailing force to the centrifugal tendencies inherent in healthcare organisations which, for all their gloss of order and rationality, are in reality very loose arrangements. The Invisible Work of Nurses will be interest to academics and students across a number of fields, including nursing, medical sociology, organisational studies, health management, science and technology studies, and improvement science.

Who counts as a health care worker? The question of where we draw the line between health care workers and non-health care workers is not merely a matter of academic nicety or a debate without consequences for care. It is a central issue for policy development because the definition often results in a division among workers in ways that undermine care. Critical to Care uses a wide range of evidence to reveal the contributions that those who provide personal care, who cook, clean, keep records, and do laundry make to health services. As a result of current reforms, these workers are increasingly treated as peripheral even though the research on what determines health demonstrates that their work is essential. The authors stress the invisibility and undervaluing of 'women's work' as well as the importance of context in understanding how this work is defined and treated. Through a gendered analysis, Critical to Care establishes a basis for discussing research, policy, and other actions in relation to the work of thousands of marginalized women and men every day.

"Demographic and technological trends have yielded new forms of work that are increasingly more precarious, globalized, and brand centered. Some of these shifts have led to a marked decrease in the visibility of work or workers. This edited collection examines situations in which technology and employment practices hide labor within the formal paid labor market, with implications for workplace activism, social policy, and law. In some cases, technological platforms, space, and temporality hide workers and sometimes obscure their tasks as well. In other situations, workers may be highly visible--indeed, the employer may rely upon the workers' aesthetics to market the branded product--but their aesthetic labor is not seen as work. In still other cases, the work occurs within a social interaction and appears as leisure--a voluntary or chosen activity--rather than as work. Alternatively, the workers themselves may be conceptualized as consumers rather than as workers. Crossing the occupational hierarchy and spectrum from high- to low-waged work, from professional to manual labor, and from production to service labor, the authors argue for a broader understanding of labor in the contemporary era. This book adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates perspectives from law, sociology, and industrial/labor relations"--Provided by publisher.

To care. To advocate. To innovate. To be a nurse.

Most social historians writing about working women in pre-nineteenth century Britain have tended to concentrate on fairly large groups, such as factory workers or domestic servants, often in an attempt to reach some conclusions regarding their standards of living and social position. Another approach has lead feminist historians to search for underlying causes of women's exploitation through the locus of class and gender. Without ignoring these crucial issues, this volume written by cultural historians takes a slightly different approach, focusing on the status of small, sometimes tiny, groups of women holding marginal positions in the labour market, and often employed on an irregular basis. Women such as housekeepers, nurses, camp followers, governesses, actresses and musicians, to take some of the cases examined in this volume, generally did not have stable, permanent employment. Even female tradesmen often only worked for short periods of their lives. The temporary, unreliable character of such work can be partly related to the changing needs of women at different periods of their lives, but it also has much to do the status of women's work in eighteenth century British society. Providing case-studies of women's work in three different environments - middle and upper class households, male dominated communities and societies and the world of the arts - this collection asks fresh questions about women's aspirations and identity at various levels of society. In comparing and contrasting these varying spheres of female employment, this book throws in sharp relief the contrasting attitude to women's work inside and outside the home, and how the latter was often regarded as having a potentially destabilising and transgressive effect on British society.

How sales representatives from Big Pharma and other healthcare companies circumvent public and regulatory scrutiny by forging relationships with nurses. Awarded second place in the 2019 AJN Book of the Year Award in the Professional Issues Category by the American Journal of Nursing It was once common for pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers to treat doctors to lavish vacations or give them new cars; companies would do virtually anything to buy influence so that their medications or devices would be used in a doctor’s office or hospital. But with growing public scrutiny of kickbacks to doctors, the huge giveaways have disappeared. In Infiltrating Healthcare, Quinn Grundy shows that sales representatives are working instead behind the scenes. It is to nurses that these companies now market. Nurses, Grundy argues, are the perfect target for sales reps: their work is largely invisible and frequently undervalued, yet they wield a great deal of influence over treatment and purchasing decisions. Furthermore, there are no legal restrictions on marketing to most nurses. Grundy describes how, under the guise of education or product support, and through gifts and free samples, sales representatives influence nurses in the course of day-to-day clinical practice. Grundy argues that the very presence of sales reps in operating rooms, purchasing committee meetings, and patient care units blurs the boundaries between patient care and medical sales. Helpfully, she also describes ways that nurses can be aware of (and resistant to) their influence. Infiltrating Healthcare is a call to action to protect the clinical spaces where we are at our most vulnerable—and the decisions that take place there—from the pursuit of profit at any cost. This is a timely book that shines a light on a practice that often goes unseen, and which has tangible implications for healthcare policy and practice.

Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2023), July 20–24, 2023, San Francisco, USA

As nurses face the ongoing challenges of an increasing need for their services combined with economic pressures, members of the largest profession in health care must become more visible, vocal, and influential. The first communication guidebook designed expressly for nurses, From Silence to Voice helps nurses understand and overcome the self-silencing that often leads RNs to downplay their own expertise and their contributions to the care of the sick and the health of the public. Bernice Buresh and Suzanne Gordon teach nurses, nurse educators, and nurse researchers critical skills they can use to explain their work to other health-care professionals, journalists, policymakers, and political representatives. From Silence to Voice features stories about nurses who ensure that patients receive appropriate, timely, and even life-saving care, nurses who make all the difference while crises are underway but whose contributions are neglected in medical charts and thank-you notes, nurses who are left out altogether or obscured by the generic "nurse." However, the book also provides detailed accounts of nurses who do make their voices heard, who do make their concerns public-- and it shows how those successes can be duplicated. Buresh and Gordon draw on real-world examples that will help nurses to - gain respect for themselves as professionals, - communicate well with both patients and health-care colleagues, - understand how the news media work, - collaborate with public relations professionals, - write effective letters to the editor and publish op-ed pieces, - appear on television and radio, and - promote research on nursing.

This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses, who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks," first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession. The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more "important" procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager is the sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients. What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.