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Aims and Objectives: To determine, from the perspectives of enrolled nurses and registered nurses, the current scope of enrolled nurse practice and to identify the activities that most enrolled nurses frequently performed in their workplace., Background: Enrolled nurse scope of practice in Australia has evolved and expanded over the past decade. However, the unclear role, function and competency differentiation between enrolled nurse and registered nurse leads to role confusion and ongoing professional debate., Design: Exploratory Descriptive Study., Methods: A cross-sectional online survey of enrolled nurses and registered nurses across Australia was conducted examining their levels of agreement on statements related to the scope of practice and the clinical and nonclinical activities that enrolled nurses were required to perform in their workplace., Results: Valid responses were received from 892 enrolled nurses and 1,198 registered nurses. Enrolled nurses mostly agreed that they understood their scope of practice; did not undertake roles for which they were unprepared; sometimes undertook activities other than direct patient care; and believed that they operated equally to many registered nurses. The majority of enrolled nurses reported that they performed tasks mostly related to basic patient care in their workplace. There were a number of significant differences between perspectives of registered nurses and enrolled nurses., Conclusions: Clarifying the roles and scope of practice between the registered nurse and the enrolled nurse is important, and explicit differences in responsibility and accountability between their roles must be clearly articulated to harmonise perceptions about role and capability. Health service providers, policymakers and education providers need to work collaboratively to ensure that facets of enrolled nurse education and scope of practice in line with regulation are affirmed by all concerned., Relevance to Clinical Practice: Health service providers, policymakers and education providers need to work collaboratively to ensure that facets of enrolled nurse education and scope of practice in line with regulation are affirmed by all concerned., (© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Reasons stated for curriculum change in nursing education are usually shifts in knowledge, care delivery, roles, regulatory standards and population health needs. In New Zealand in the 1930s, a curriculum change was driven instead by the need to protect and promote nurses' health. Tuberculosis was an international occupational health risk among nurses. Mary Lambie, New Zealand's chief nurse, considered nursing a "hazardous profession". One remedy she instituted was curriculum change in the national nurse training programme to emphasise health promotion among nurses. Global nursing issues today also impact on nurses' health. Curriculum changes again address this by promoting self-care and resilience., Objective: To examine how international and national concern for nurses' occupational health drove a curriculum change in New Zealand nurse training in the 1930s., Design: Historical Research, Methods: International occupational health reports (1930s), Lambie's annual reports (1932-1950), and questions and examiners' comments in a new state examination (1940s-1950s), were analysed to identify the reasons for and direction of the curriculum change. Findings were interpreted within international and national concerns and measures related to occupational health in nursing., Results: Lambie used the political leverage of international and national worry over tuberculosis as a nursing occupational health risk to protect nurses' health more generally. In 1933 she revised the first year of the three-year national nursing curriculum to emphasise personal hygiene and bacteriology related to cross-infection, and in 1938 introduced a State Preliminary Examination at the end of the first year of training to test this knowledge. Analysis of examinations, 1940s-1950s, confirms that the curriculum change driver was a concern to make nursing a less "hazardous profession"., Conclusion: Nurse educators today should be aware of the variety of factors that can lead to curriculum change in nursing. In addition, concern for nurses' health today demonstrates the continuing need for health promotion in nursing curricula., (© 2013.)

Portrayals of vulnerable groups in public media, government reports and professional accounts tend, by definition, to focus on their deficits in order to identify need and shape appropriate health care responses. This article within the cultural history of nursing considers a different construction of one vulnerable group in the past, the 'sick poor' in early 20th-century New Zealand. The research analysed primary historical sources that offered rich descriptions of the sick poor, drawn from one major daily newspaper and the country's professional nursing journal, 1900-1920. The article argues that in co-constructing the sick poor as a vulnerable group, district nurses and journalists primarily used the trope of 'sunless lives'. However, they also constructed them as resourceful, resilient and determined. This article offers the construction of the sick poor by district nurses and journalists in early 20th-century New Zealand as an example of a more nuanced construction that goes beyond a one-dimensional portrayal of vulnerability.

Aims and objectives To examine lay-professional nursing boundaries, using challenges to the New Zealand nursing profession following the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic as the example. Background The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 had an overwhelming international impact on communities and the nursing profession. After the pandemic, the expectation for communities to be able to nurse the sick reflects today's increasing reliance on families to care for people at home. It similarly raised questions about the profession's role and professional boundaries in relation to volunteer or lay nursing. In New Zealand, the postpandemic challenge to build community lay nursing capacity tested these boundaries. Design Historical research. Methods Analysis of historical primary sources of official reports, newspaper accounts, articles in New Zealand's professional nursing journal Kai Tiaki and the memoir of Hester Maclean, the country's chief nurse. Interpretation of findings in relation to secondary sources examining similar historical tensions between professional and lay nursing, and to the more recent notion of professional resilience. Results Maclean guarded nursing's professional boundaries by maintaining considerable control over community instruction in nursing and by strenuously resisting the suggestion that this should be done in hospitals where professional nurses trained. Conclusions This historical example shows how the nursing profession faced the perceived threat to its professional boundaries. It also shows how competing goals of building community lay nursing capacity and protecting professional boundaries can be effectively managed. Relevance to Clinical Practice In the context of a global nursing shortage, limited healthcare budgets and a consequently increasing reliance on households to provide care for family members, this historical research shows nurses today that similar issues have been faced and effectively managed in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a study that examines how nurses can use their historical imagination in considering professional issues in Australia. Researchers used aspects of the history of bush nursing to demonstrate how nurses in rural and remote areas nursing could use their historical imagination in addressing existing issues of the profession. Findings of the study suggest that historical imagination in nursing has the potential to help nurses address professional issues.

Finding the most appropriate way to assess knowledge is an enduring issue. In the past, nurses seeking state registration or professional qualification through nursing association membership were required to pass state final or association examinations. This historical research describes final examinations in surgical nursing in Australia and New Zealand, 1905–1930, when the examination process and standards were first being established. A comparison shows more similarity than difference between the two countries' examinations. Not surprisingly, the most common topic in this pre-antibiotic period was prevention of wound infection. Despite the generally high pass rate, analysis of published examiners' comments in New Zealand reveals concern about areas of nurses' knowledge and level of general education. Examiners were concerned to ensure an effective examination but also provided advice on how to pass it. The research contributes to a consideration of surgeons' expectations of nurses, and relations and knowledge boundaries between the two professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]