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Governing the Operating Room List

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The Discourse of Hospital Communication

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on the power relationships in communication between nurses and surgeons as they struggle to structure work activities around the operating room list; that is, the schedule of surgical procedures to be performed each day in operating rooms. Drawing upon data from a larger ethnographic study that explored communication in operating rooms (Riley and Manias, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006a, b), in this chapter we deconstruct the discursive communication practices that surround the operating list using the Foucauldian (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982) tools of discourse, power, knowledge and subjectivity. It is argued that nurses are positioned between competing organizational discourses that privilege time and efficiency and the hierarchical dominance of surgeons. However, despite this complex positioning, nurses challenge surgeons’ traditional and hierarchical right to determine the order of the operating list, and position themselves as active subjects in ways that challenge the traditional, handmaiden image of nurses who work in this setting.

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Authors
  1. Robin Riley
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  2. Elizabeth Manias
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

    Rick Iedema (Professor and Associate Dean (Research) (Professor and Associate Dean (Research)

Copyright information

© 2007 Robin Riley and Elizabeth Manias

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Riley, R., Manias, E. (2007). Governing the Operating Room List. In: Iedema, R. (eds) The Discourse of Hospital Communication. Palgrave Studies in Professional and Organizational Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230595477_4

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