Category: Professional development

As a clinician and educator, I have long been interested in how to prepare nurses for professional practice. Schon uses a metaphor of terrain made up of high, hard ground overlooking a swamp which Street (1991) has extended to nursing practice. While some clinical problems can be resolved through theory and technique (on hard ground), […]

I have had several tooth adventures. The time I rather enthusiastically pushed my middle sister on her bicycle and she fell over the handlebars breaking a tooth (or was that the time I helped her break her collar-bone?). My own dental fluorosis (a developmental disturbance of enamel that results from ingesting high amounts of fluoride during […]

Unpublished manuscript for those who might be interested. Cite as: DeSouza, R. (2016, July 16). Using forum theatre to facilitate reflection and culturally safe practice in nursing [Web log post]. Retrieved from: http://ruthdesouza.dreamhosters.com/2016/07/16/using-forum-theatre-for-reflective-practice/ High quality communication is central to nursing practice and to nurse education. The quality of interaction between service users/patients and inter-professional teams […]

Article first published online: 13 MAY 2014  De Souza, Ruth Noreen Argie. (2014). ‘This child is a planned baby’: skilled migrant fathers and reproductive decision-making. Journal of Advanced Nursing. doi: 10.1111/jan.12448 Risk management and life planning are a feature of contemporary parenting, which enable children to be shaped into responsible citizens, who are successful and […]

Cite as: DeSouza, Ruth. (2014). One woman’s empowerment is another’s oppression: Korean migrant mothers on giving birth in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Transcultural Nursing. doi: 10.1177/1043659614523472.  Download pdf (262KB) DeSouza J Transcult Nurs-2014. Published online before print on February 28, 2014. Abstract Purpose: To critically analyze the power relations underpinning New Zealand maternity, through analysis of discourses […]

Here’s an excerpt from a chapter I wrote on culture/ethnicity and supervision, the paragraph seems more than apt these days. “We don’t colonise, these days, through the barrel of a gun, but through the comfortable words of those who change the hearts, minds and spirits of people” (Waldegrave, 2001). Supervision provides a powerful learning environment that helps […]

This is a lengthier version of an editorial published in this month’s Kai Tiaki New Zealand Nursing Journal. It is based on an invited address I gave at the 10th Annual Conference of the Women’s Health Section:’Divine Secrets of the Sisterhood’ on April 26th  2012. I recently spoke at the NZNO Women’s health conference about sisterhood. Not that […]

In 2007 a student nurse called Lisa Kenyon wrote to the Kai Tiaki asking questions about nursing. I’ve reprinted her letter here and then my response. It seems relevant at the moment I am a year-one nursing student from Waiariki Institute of Technology, doing my bachelor of nursing at Windermere in Tauranga. I have recently […]

Published in Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand 13.10 (Nov 2007): p20(2). It is 11 years since my first conference presentation and I remember that day vividly. I had prepared carefully for the presentation; friends and family came to support me; but a tricky question at the end of my presentation took me by surprise: “Ruth, […]

First published in Mindnet Issue 11 – Spring 2007 Recently I’ve come through a series of life changing stresses and learned what true love; friendship and personal strength were about. In particular the words of wise Rabbi Hillel, a Jewish scholar & theologian who lived from 30 BC – 9 AD have been a source […]