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The need for private higher education in South Africa is reflected by the explosive growth of newly registered private higher education institutions. This is coupled with a need for corporate quality management of service quality for students and academics. This article elaborates on service quality from a corporate sociotechnical perspective. The research was part of the development of a framework for the holistic management of service quality by means of a corporate total quality service approach. The total quality service framework was developed following a comprehensive sequential research process. This article focuses on the final part of the process: a qualitative open-ended question to identify additional service-quality needs, utilising 499 responses from 647 students and academics. It is concluded that a holistic approach to service quality and the total quality service framework includes quality of work life as a performance objective based on sociotechnical needs beyond the traditional dimensions.

In the context of higher education as social space or "field" in the Bourdieusian sense, exploring the lived experiences of early career postgraduate supervisors allow us to (re)consider the institutionalised rhythms, procedures and practices that shape graduate supervision. At the intersections of, inter alia, increasing numbers postgraduate students, the urgent need to transform SA higher education, and the need for appropriately qualified and experienced supervisors, many early career postgraduate supervisors are caught between understanding the "doxa" and orthodoxy shaping postgraduate supervision, and the necessary "symbolic capital" to formulate, engage with and practice heterodoxy. This article employs Bourdieu's doxic schema ("doxa", orthodoxy and heterodoxy) along with "symbolic capital" to make visible the doxic lifeworld experiences and journeys of early career supervisors. The research found that early career supervisors are often under-prepared, lacking symbolic capital and experiencing (toxic) shame.

The objective of this paper is to map the role of capital in the process of learning to become a postgraduate supervisor. Economic, technological and geopolitical changes in higher education call into question previous assumptions about supervision. Supervision is no longer primarily seen as an intellectual and social enterprise but is increasingly seen as professional work, where one's capital (or lack of) shapes the process of being and becoming a supervisor. It is frequently assumed that the students are the only ones learning in a supervisory relationship. Novice supervisors are, however, often left to their own devices to discover or learn the inherent rules, epistemologies and ontologies in becoming and being supervisors through a process of compromise and negotiation. In this article, we specifically focus on the need for "novice supervisors" to understand and navigate the field, and plot their career trajectories, as a constant exchange of different aspects of capital. This article is conceptual, rather than empirical. We suggest that it may be helpful to understand the field of supervision in a Bourdieusian sense, with specific reference to the role of (academic) capital in the formative processes of becoming and being a supervisor. We discuss social capital, gender and race, age, values, beliefs and experiences, as well as linguistic abilities, as factors influencing the individual "habitus" of the supervisor in relation to the "doxa" of the field.

In the social imaginary of higher education, there are many mutually constitutive forces shaping academic identities, such as academics' habitus, dispositions, race, gender and student expectations. Our queer academic identities are furthermore robustly intertwined with, and emerging within, cultural, political and economic histories and realities. In post-apartheid South Africa, our academic identities are constituted in the nexus of historical white privilege on the one hand, and on the other hand, the prevailing heteronormative and homophobic public sentiment on the African continent. In the intersection of race and gender as technologies of power, we perform our identities as academics as "process" amidst often incommensurable and multiple claims and counterclaims. In the context of being and becoming academics, our identities as "nomads" provide a particular coherence, continuity and stability, albeit a continually "changing core but the sense of a core nonetheless--that at any given moment is enunciated as the "I"" (Brah, A. 1996. "Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities." London, UK: Routledge, pp. 123-124). In this collaborative autoethnographic narrative, we explore becoming and being nomad as one particular lens among many others to describe our personal journeys and map a selection of issues of (dis)location and transitions that constitute our subjective and material experiences and our own trajectories of becoming. Three analytics constructs are explored: namely spaces of becoming, cycles of becoming and negotiating and performing becoming.

Globally, a clarion call has been made for higher education institutions to establish creative and effective research capacity-building systems with the purpose of developing a next generation of scholars. The training and skills development of a researcher entail a process of increasing levels of participation in diverse communities of practice. We argue that external group research coaching and mentoring could provide a formative social context which negotiates the tensions of engagement. It could also improve accountability and building of a shared repertoire inherent to a research community of practice at a university of technology in South Africa. The purpose of this qualitative single-case study is to evaluate the practical relevance of the external coaching and mentoring programme in negotiating the tensions inherent in building a research community of practice. The findings indicate that the majority of students moved from a peripheral position of uncertainty and doubt to one of mutual engagement. A handful of students' participation remained peripheral and, in some instances, became outbound. The ways in which the next generation of scholars engaged with each other and with the world profoundly shaped their identity. Rites of passage to membership of this research community of practice were negotiated and an initial shared repertoire of resources was developed.

There is a growing demand and a global shift towards universal holistic healthcare. The work context of health professionals is often marked with numerous stressors and demands affecting the outcomes of clients. Current individual wellness interventions often lack a holistic and self-regulation approach needed to ensure optimal individual wellness. An Appreciative Inquiry (AI)-based strategy was utilised. In-depth, one-on-one semistructured interviews were conducted with somatology health professionals in order to determine their peak experience of holistic individual wellness and to question their ideal wellness dream. Field notes and reflective notes allowed for triangulation. The findings of this study indicated that participants utilise various personal, interpersonal and financial wellness options to facilitate their individual holistic wellness. The research team, therefore, suggests seven self-coaching strategies to address the findings of this study. These strategies aim to facilitate behavioural change in a flexible and interconnected process in order to promote holistic individual wellness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Family units can be deeply affected and require nurses' attention and care when their loved ones reach the end-of-life stage. However, the role of the family in end-of-life nursing is under-researched in a tertiary hospital setting., Aim: This study aims to explore and describe nurses' lived experiences of the family's role in end-of-life care at a tertiary hospital in the Western Cape., Setting: The study took place in a tertiary hospital in the Western Cape., Methods: A qualitative hermeneutic design with a phenomenological approach was used. Ten professional nurses were interviewed in person, and two focus groups comprised enrolled and auxiliary nurses (11) with a minimum of 6 months of experience in end-of-life care. Data analysis was conducted by categorising qualitative information into codes and themes, following Creswell's outlined methodology., Results: Three themes emerged: emotional challenges associated with families of end-of-life patients, strategies that assist families and impediments to providing care. Participants experienced challenges managing strong emotions expressed by families and their own, but provided care regardless. Strategies that have been found to be helpful to families include communication, access, and involving them in patient care. Participants experienced the need for emotional support and specialised end-of-life training., Conclusion: Participants strive to provide understanding and support to families despite challenges, but emotional and end-of-life training resources are required to equip nurses to address patients' and families' needs competently., Contribution: This study adds the nurses' experience and understanding of the family's role in providing end-of-life care in a tertiary hospital., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article., (© 2024. The Authors.)

Background: During and in the aftermath of the COVID-19, the rate of depression increased globally. A significant number of patients found in a general hospital or ward with physical conditions often have depression., Aim: This study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of registered nurses' experiences managing patients with depression in a general medical ward., Setting: The study took place in two general medical wards of a private hospital in the Gauteng province, South Africa, in 2021, with COVID-19 lockdown levels three to one prevailing., Methods: A descriptive qualitative design was used, and data were collected through 10 in-depth, face-to-face interviews. Data were analysed using a thematic approach., Results: The COVID-19 pandemic exerted a bidirectional influence, affecting both patients diagnosed with depression while admitted to a general ward and the nurses caring for them. This mutual impact added an additional layer of complexity to patient management., Conclusion: For optimal care of patients with depression in general wards, nurses need comprehensive training, confidence and a safe environment, bolstered by sufficient resources and robust management support., Contribution: The study highlights critical challenges in detecting and caring for patients diagnosed with depression in a general medical ward and the compounding effect of COVID-19. These findings underscore the importance of addressing clinical and psychosocial needs in a healthcare setting, especially amid a global pandemic., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article., (© 2023. The Authors.)

Background: Early career health science professionals often find themselves in a transitional space when moving from a health science professional role to academia. The role of a postgraduate supervisor is especially troublesome. Transitional spaces often bring uncertainty and perceived or real threats, fear, worry, anxiety and stress. Without support, the result could be detrimental to the mental health of the early career as postgraduate supervisors, thereby impacting their professional identity formation., Aim: To understand the underlying elements that shaped the early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors' habitus and how these features play out in their postgraduate supervision practice., Setting: The research study was carried out at an Open and Distance e-Learning University (ODeL) and a residential university., Methods: Visual elicitation methods in the form of seven drawings were used as data. Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and hexis were used as a theoretical lens, and structural analysis with analytical memoing was used to interrogate the drawings., Results: Early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors' bodily habitus presented as fragmented or yet to be formed along with other entanglements, such as emotions, language, power and material arrangements., Conclusion: These features enable policymakers, employee assistance practitioners, educational developers and experienced academics to consider the changes and structural forces that need to be addressed to support early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors., Contribution: A creative means of exploring the inner world of the early career health science professional as postgraduate supervisors is undertaken. In doing so, the research article potentially illuminates what has up to now been 'unsaid'., Competing Interests: The author has declared that she has no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced her in writing this article., (© 2021. The Authors.)

Background: One of the major challenges associated with nursing education in this 21st century is the practice preparation of student nurses to serve in complex healthcare environments and to ensure their fitness to practise in these environments. Clinical mentoring has shown promise in providing clinical learning support for student nurses. Most approaches are, however, biased towards higher-income settings without giving due consideration to the resources, culture and structures of health systems in resource-limited settings. It is also unclear how qualified nurses who act as nurse teachers experience the clinical mentoring of student nurses in resource-limited settings., Aim: This study aimed to explore and describe the experiences of qualified nurses regarding the clinical mentoring of nursing students in resource-limited settings., Setting: The study took place in Mauritius, a developing country., Methods: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive approach was used with a purposive sample of eight nurses. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews and thematically analysed., Results: The findings indicated that mentoring per se was not practised, but rather general support, supervision or coaching. This resulted in the practice being less effective for its original purpose. Possible explanations included a lack of policy directives. Additionally, the mentoring practice was informal with unclear role expectations. Poor material and personal resources further compounded the challenges. An absence of buy-in and involvement of management along with a lack of monitoring clinical mentoring by the nursing school concludes the picture., Conclusion: Effective clinical mentoring requires an understanding of the mentoring process from a broader perspective. Mentors should be equipped with core competencies. Successful mentoring outcomes are dependent on a conducive clinical learning environment and a clear mentoring approach., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article., (© 2020. The Authors.)

Background: Health professionals play a vital role in the stability and sustainability of any healthcare system. However, the well-documented long working hours, lack of wellness support structures, regular occurrence of burnout and low retention rates are concerning., Aim: The aim of this research study was to understand how a group of therapists self-manage their own individual wellness, to provide insight on how other health professionals, working in a demanding environment, could potentially address their individual wellness more effectively., Setting: The research was conducted in a private room at the place of participant employment, in two metropolitans in Gauteng, South Africa., Method: Qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual designs were used within the paradigm of constructivism. Purposive sampling was used to select participants. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, field notes and reflective practices, and analysed through open coding., Results: This study revealed disequilibrium between the theoretical knowledge and practical realities of therapists, and indicated that these therapists experience various personal obstacles that hinder the self-management of their individual wellness., Conclusions: Somatology therapists use various personal strategies that allow them to better self-manage their individual wellness. Individual wellness seems to be a personal phenomenon, indicating the need to self-reflect on personal perceptions of wellness, individual wellness obstacles and individual wellness strategies to effectively self-manage individual wellness., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article., (© 2019. The Authors.)

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) in South Africa is critical to the development of an equitable education and training system. Historically, nursing has been known as one of the professions that provides access to the training and education of marginalised groups who have minimal access to formal education. The advent of implementing RPL in nursing has, however, not been without challenges. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of RPL nursing candidates related to a 4-year comprehensive nursing training programme at a nursing education institution in Gauteng. An exploratory, descriptive and contextual qualitative research design was undertaken. The research sample comprised 13 purposefully selected participants. Face-to-face individual interviews, using open-ended questions, were used to collect data, which were analysed using Tesch's approach. Recognition of prior learning candidates experienced a number of realities as adult learners. On a positive note, their prior knowledge and experience supported them in their learning endeavours. Participants, however, experienced a number of challenges on personal, interpersonal and socialisation, and educational levels. It is important that opportunities are created to support and assist RPL candidates to complete their nursing training. This support structure, among others, should include the provision of RPL-related information, giving appropriate advice, coaching and mentoring, effective administration services, integrated curriculum design, and a variety of formative and summative assessment practices., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article., (© 2018. The Authors.)