Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine

History of Nursing Research Colloquium

The next Colloquium will be held on Friday 10 March 2006 at the The School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Manchester

Organisers: Dr Christine Hallett contact christine.hallett@manchester.ac.uk and Claire Chatterton contact c.s.chatterton@pgr.salford.ac.uk

Co-conveners: Claire Chatterton, Christine Hallett and Helen Sweet

The colloquium was established in 1997 and since then has played an important role in bringing together researchers in the history of nursing. It has contributed to the creation of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing, launched in 2000.

The first Colloquium for History of Nursing Research was held at Oxford Brookes University in March 1997. Its primary aim was to bring together leading researchers in this relatively new field in order to establish and promote an agenda for debate and research, and to create a forum providing mutual support and encouragement. The colloquium also has direct links with the newly formed Centre for the History of Nursing in Edinburgh (launched in 2000) and will continue to work in close collaboration with the organisers as an outreach facility to advance history of nursing scholarship. Participants are selected on an invitation-only basis and include the leading researchers in the field, practitioners, nurse educators, and an interdisciplinary mixture of postgraduates at various stages of nursing history research. The day is run as a series of 'masterclass' presentations or workshops with a number of 'experts' in these fields providing a constructive critique on each presentation. This format and the limitation of delegates makes for a very different forum from the usual seminar or conference experience, and has proved to be extremely popular.

Discussions have centred upon identifying priorities for research, consideration of particular research issues, methodological difficulties, disciplinary boundaries, multi-disciplinary connections and bridging major information gaps, whilst addressing the need for a multiplicity of approaches towards nursing history. Research in the History of Nursing is developing rapidly in a number of academic institutions throughout the UK and elsewhere in Europe, the USA, Japan, South Africa and Australia. It has a three-fold relevance as a relatively new discipline:

• as a partner to the History of Medicine in establishing a broader view of the 'History of Health' encompassing labour history, gender studies, oral and social history, anthropology and the social sciences
• by contributing a historical perspective to debates on health policy and
• by encouraging reflective practice amongst nursing professionals through informing nursing education

A number of major themes have already been identified by the colloquium: self-image and professional identity; race and gender; the impact of technology; and the importance of political and economic factors in practitioner/ patient relationships.

Central Aims of the Colloquium:

1. To provide a multi-disciplinary framework of support, collaboration and peer review for researchers in the History of Nursing.
2. To debate and establish an agenda for research in the History of Nursing including its relationship to the History of Medicine, the Social Sciences and Health Care Studies.
3. To bring international and comparative perspectives by extending the colloquium to include overseas participants.
4. To provide historical analyses that will inform a) policy formulation and implementation in the field of nursing and b) the development of reflective practice via nursing education.
5. To disseminate the results of research in the History of Nursing to audiences that will include academics, post-graduates, and health professionals.
6. To stimulate historical scholarship in this field through occasional joint publications in cooperation with the UK Centre for the History of Nursing (http://www.ukchnm.org/) and the RCN History of Nursing Society.

Further information may be obtained from the Colloquium's Co-convener, Helen Sweet, Research Assistant at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, 45-47 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PE (email helen.sweet@wuhmo.ox.ac.uk)

The History of Nursing Society of the RCN will be sponsoring this event in 2006.

Back to Events