Becoming a “Good Nurse”: Social Norms of Conduct and the Management of Interpersonal Relations

Abstract

Within the profession of nursing, an intrinsic aspect of interactional competence is the nurses’ ability to manage interpersonal relations and to act in accordance with cultural and social norms of proper nurse conduct. The focus of this chapter is on how student nurses are socialized into preferred modes of interacting with patients. The data consist of video recordings of a training session in which nursing students at a clinical training center learn to insert peripheral venous catheters. The results of the study show various ways in which the students and their teacher explore social norms of proper nurse conduct by mobilizing the category term “patient,” and how the notion of a “good nurse” thus emerges in interaction between the participants.

Appendix: Transcription Conventions (Adapted from Jefferson 2004; Mondada 2009)

[ ]	Overlapping talk.
=	Equal signs indicate no break or gap between the lines.
(0.8) (.)	Numbers in parentheses indicate length of silence in seconds. A dot in parentheses indicates a micropause.
. , ¿ ?	The punctuation marks indicate intonation. The period indicates falling intonation; the comma, continuing intonation; the inverted question mark, slightly rising intonation; and the question mark indicates a rising intonation.
::	Colons are used to indicate prolongation or stretching of the immediately prior sound.
-	A hyphen after a word indicates a cut-off or self-interruption.
w ord WOrd	Underlining indicates some form of stress or emphasis. The more the underlining, the greater the emphasis. Especially loud talk is indicated by upper case.
° °	The degree signs indicate that the talk between them was quieter than its surrounding talk.
£word£	The pound signs indicate a smile voice.
↑	The up arrow marks a sharp rise in pitch.
< >	Left/right carats indicate that the talk between them is slowed down.
.h .hh	Audible inbreath is shown with a “.h”—the more h’s the more inbreath.
wo(h)rd	Laugh particles.
(( ))	Double parentheses are used to mark transcriber’s descriptions of events.
( )	Empty parentheses indicate that something is being said, but it is incomprehensible.
* *	Gestures and action descriptions are delimited between two identical symbols and are synchronized with corresponding stretches of talk.
-> *-> ->*	Gesture or action described continues after excerpt’s end. Gesture or action described continues across subsequent lines until the same symbol is reached.
ami	Participant doing the gesture is identified when (s)he is not the speaker.