UNTOLD STORIES: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF BRAZILIAN NOVICE NURSES.
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 238
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This qualitative study is a descriptive-exploratory one guided by a phenomenological perspective and using Van Manen's (1984) outline for phenomenological writing. The phenomenon of interest was to understand what being a novice nurse was by grasping the nature of this experience that was unknown by the Brazilian nursing community.

This undertaking used storytelling as the methodological approach in order to access the novices' experiences by connecting the beginning of their careers with their own search in becoming professionals.

The findings of this study revealed how novice nurses perceive themselves entering into practice, how they experience the beginning of their professional life, and how they perceive themselves as professionals. The novice nurses began telling their stories by sharing their feelings about beginning in nursing. They described the impact they felt in confronting the realities of nursing school and those of the health care system. They revealed how they perceived teaching and the teachers' role, and nurses' theoretical knowledge and its relation to their nursing practice. Furthermore, they put into words how they lived the experiences of being nursing team supervisors and confronting the dominant ideology in the health care system. They also expressed how they experienced the dominant-submissive relationship in nursing school and in the workplace, and the great value of the outward appearance of nurses. They commented on the indefiniteness of the professional nurse's role, lack of autonomy and decisiveness in their professional practice. They perceived nursing as a devalued women's profession and confronted the nurses' voicelessness, frustration, and alienation. They shared how they envisioned their future in order to resist the adverse nursing professional context.

Novice nurses raised important issues within the realm of nursing education and nursing practice which were brought to light in a critical way, revealing what is supposed to be covert about the nurses' everyday activities. One of the study's purposes was to invite the nursing community to reflect upon the nurses' narratives and to use them to discuss the profession's issues.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-02, Section: B, page: 0774.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1992.

School code: 0055.