Browsing by Author "Kunyk, Diane"

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    Disciplining virtue: investigating the discourses of opioid addiction in nursing
    (2016) Kunyk, Diane; Milner, Margaret; Overend, Alissa
    Two nurses diagnosed with opioid addiction launched legal action after being found guilty of unprofessional conduct due to addiction‐related behaviors. When covered by the media, their cases sparked both public and legal controversies. We are curious about the broader discursive framings that led to these strong reactions, and analyze the underlying structures of knowledge and power that shape the issue of opioid addiction in the profession of nursing through a critical discourse analysis of popular media, legal blogs and hearing tribunals. We argue that addiction in nursing is framed as personal choice, as a failure in the moral character of the nurses, as decontextualized from addiction as disease arguments, and as an individualized issue devoid of contextual factors leading to addiction. Our investigation offers a critical case study of a nursing regulatory body that upheld popular assumptions of addiction as an autonomous, rational choice replete with individual‐based consequences – a framing that is inconsistent with evidence‐based practice in health‐care. We put forth this critical interrogation to open up possibilities for counterdiscourses that may promote more nuanced and effective responses to the issue of addiction in nursing.
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    One child, one appointment: how institutional discourses organize the work of parents and nurses in the provision of childhood vaccination for First Nations children
    (2022) Foster-Boucher, Caroline; MacDonald, Shannon; Graham, Bonny; Paragg, Jillian; Waters, Nicola; Shea-Budgel, Melissa; McNeil, Deborah; Kunyk, Diane; Bedingfield, Nancy; Dubé, Eve; Kenzie, Lisa; Svenson, Lawrence W.; Littlechild, Randy; Nelson, Gregg
    To effectively support childhood vaccine programs for First Nations Peoples, Canada’s largest population of Indigenous Peoples, it is essential to understand the context, processes, and structures organizing vaccine access and uptake. Rather than assuming that solutions lie in compliance with current regulations, our aim was to identify opportunities for innovation by exploring the work that nurses and parents must do to have children vaccinated. In partnership with a large First Nations community, we used an institutional ethnography approach that included observing vaccination clinic appointments, interview-ing individuals involved in childhood vaccinations, and reviewing documented vaccination processes and regulations (texts). We found that the ‘work’ nurses engage in to deliver childhood vaccines is highly regulated by standardized texts that prioritize discourses of safety and efficiency. Within the setting of nursing practice in a First Nations community, these regulations do not always support the best interests of families. Nurses and parents are caught between the desire to vaccinate multiple children and the requirement to follow institutionally authorized processes. The success of the vaccination program, when measured solely by the number of children who follow the vaccine schedule, does not take into consideration the challenges nurses encounter in the clinic or the work parents do to get their children vaccinated. Exploring new ways of approaching the processes could lead to increased vaccination uptake and satisfaction for parents and nurses.