Discipline and passion: meaning, masochism and mythology in popular medical romances

This paper is an interpretive analysis of the discourses within popular romance literature, with a particular focus on the genre that includes constructions of the images of nurses and nursing. An historical contrast is made along with examinations of the uses and meanings encompassed within this body of literature, and its messages for women as nurses as it reflects/creates societal change. Deviations from the formulaic nature of these works are explored. Discipline and passion are the recurring themes evident throughout in juxtapositions of romance and power differentials in the hospital/medical scene. The soft-core, sado-masochistic images evident in many titles are explored in a way that raises questions about sexuality, romance, nursing mythology, and the future of this sub-genre of the popular romance.

The humanities and nursing: using popular literature as a means of understanding human experience

The rapid advances in technology during the twentieth century have encouraged science and technology to be the main focus of the nursing curricula. The effect of this focus tends to hinder the importance of the human condition. This paper discusses the benefits of including the humanities, particularly but not exclusively the inclusion of literary study in nursing curricula. It is argued that the study of popular literature by students of nursing provides them with the opportunity to understand and to appreciate life experiences. This assists them in gaining awareness and sensitivity to the many physical and psychological components of people's reactions to health, illness and hospitalization. The power of literary study to promote an appreciation of the hurt and pain of disease is considered by the authors to be an effective teaching tool within a comprehensive programme for students of nursing.

Perceptions of stressors and reported coping strategies in nurses caring for residents with Alzheimer's disease in a dementia unit

A study was undertaken on the perceptions of stressors and coping behaviours in a group of nurses caring for residents with Alzheimer's disease in a dementia unit. The purpose of this paper is to report on the preliminary findings of the study. Repertory grid data were used to explore how nurses perceive residents, the stressors nurses experience in their work, and the coping strategies nurses use when caring for residents. The nurses identified 92 sources of stress, 683 coping behaviours and 708 coping strategies. Analyses of selected repertory grid data are presented and the stressors reported by the nurses are summarized. The coping strategies the nurses report using are classified into categories of adaptive and maladaptive responses to stress. In addition, the nursing implications of the coping strategies used by the nurses are also considered.

Apparent positive cooperativity in the mechanism of action of luteinizng hormone

In vitro accumulation of cyclic AMP by rat Leydig cell preparation and mouse tumor Leydig cells in response to exogenous LH appears to display an apparent Hill coefficient of 2.5. This is suggestive of positive cooperativity at a level intermediate between binding and cyclic AMP production, although several alternative hypothesis cannot be excluded on the basis of these data alone. The Hill coefficient for testosterone is higher than unity, although it has not been established with adequate precision in these experiments.