Managing the doctor-nurse game: a nursing and social science analysis

In the struggle to achieve professional status and develop a body of knowledge, nursing has embraced a number of 'sciences' and 'disciplines'. These have included sociology and feminist perspectives. This paper explores the difficulties of drawing on these disciplines independently of everyday nursing practice. Using a case study approach, we illustrate the way in which some nurses draw on sociological and feminist 'definitions of the situation' in the 'doctor-nurse game', while others draw directly on nursing practice. The nursing practice in this case is concerned with pain management. We conclude that 'shared care' requires a collaboration with medicine that draws on nursing practice to demonstrate an integrated nursing knowledge in a way that acknowledges, challenges and asserts issues of power and status.