Glimpses into the transition world: New graduate nurses' written reflections.

Background: This study was born out of our reflections as educators responsible for helping new graduate nurses transition into their first year of professional practice through a formal education programme. Finding ourselves wondering about many of the questions the students raised with us, we set about looking more closely at what could be gleaned from the students' experience, captured in their written work over the course of a year.

Objectives: To identify the challenges and learning experiences revealed in reflective assignments written by new graduate nurses undertaking a postgraduate course as part of their transition to registered nurse practice.

Othering the Chronically Ill: A Discourse Analysis of New Zealand Health Policy Documents.

It is widely recognized that chronic illnesses pose significant challenges for health care systems around the world. In response, most governments have set health policies in order to manage (or better, reduce) demand and improve the health of their populations. A discourse analysis of four policy documents that shape these strategies in New Zealand reveals that the policies construct the chronically ill as "others," that is, as deviant or different from the "normal" population.

Demoralization and remoralization: a review of these constructs in the healthcare literature.

Demoralization and remoralization: a review of these constructs in the healthcare literature Development of the constructs of demoralization and remoralization began in the psychiatric literature in the 1970s when a psychiatrist in the USA observed a pattern of characteristics in people referred to him for depression, which he believed, was not depression. These characteristics included hopelessness, helplessness, isolation, low self-esteem and despair. Such characteristics are often termed existential distress.

Making breathing your business: enterprising practices at the margins of orthodoxy.

Over the last 30 years there has been a gradual but nonetheless significant shift in the political economy of healthcare in developed countries. The health reforms that have accompanied this shift have had a significant impact upon medicine, nursing and a number of other orthodox health professions, but to date, little work has been done to explore the changing nature of physiotherapy practice. This study draws on Foucault's notion of governmentality to explore the enterprising practices of a new physiotherapy clinic established in Auckland, New Zealand.

Law and policy in relation to the use of seclusion in psychiatric hospitals in Australia and New Zealand.

This paper discusses legal issues associated with the seclusion of acutely disturbed patients in psychiatric hospitals in Australia and New Zealand. There continues to be great variation in opinion and operational definition as to whether seclusion is a medical treatment, nursing intervention and management tool, or merely a form of situational restraint. Reflecting this lack of clarity, mental health acts and policies concerning the regulation and practice of seclusion lack consistency and focus across geographical boundaries and jurisdictions.

Chronic pain in elderly nursing home residents: the need for nursing leadership.

The incidence of chronic pain amongst elderly people in nursing homes is very high, making pain in this population a serious problem for aged care facilities. Research studies reveal a pattern of poor pain management in this setting despite the high incidence of pain suggesting that the management of pain in nursing homes is limited in scope and only partially effective. What is not fully appreciated by health professionals is the impact pain has on the lives of elderly people who live in nursing homes.