About

Hi, my name's Duncan. I'm a nurse and postgraduate researcher. Currently I'm working in acute respiratory care and pursuing my doctoral research, a realist evaluation of Schwartz Rounds for undergraduate healthcare students. I've also been known to write a bit, most frequently for periodicals like the British Journal of Nursing and Nursing Standard. Some time before all that, I was on my way to becoming a barrister (I have a qualifying law degree), but I eventually found I'd rather be caring for people's health than their legal affairs.

I also discovered that nursing is one of the most challenging and scientifically diverse professions you could ever hope to find. We're expected to master various hard sciences and social sciences, as well as a knowledge gap we just call the "art" of nursing. It's awesome and inspiring! This site exists to be an exploration of that, because there isn't nearly enough coverage of just how demanding nursing is, or how regularly nurses meet and exceed that challenge.

Recently, some commentators have suggested nursing is becoming too academic at the cost of our core values, that having knowledge and compassion is mutually exclusive. I wonder, why can't we have both?

You could be looked after by a nurse who has excellent people skills, will comfort you in your darkest moments, who draws upon their own raw life experiences to make you feel cared for with a deep sense of empathy. And you can have all of that, but also a disciplined understanding of bio-sciences, ethics, philosophy, policy/politics, information technology, behavioural psychology, epidemiology, statistics, human factors/ergonomics and more. So, why not both?

I'd like to explore that question. I hope you'll join me.