Abstract:
In 2003 the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act was introduced and
established separate regulatory authorities for nursing and midwifery. This study is
designed to explore the experiences of dually registered practitioners affected by this
divide, as now there are two separate and possible paths, and two corresponding sets of
competencies to fulfil.
The design for this qualitative descriptive study utilised the written and oral narratives of
three practitioners affected by this professional regulation and demonstrated its impact on
their career development. Individual storytelling, as narrative, provided a theoretical lens
aiding insight into their experience and pattern of decision making. In addition, symbolic
consideration of the study data was provided by collective storytelling via the perennial
myth of the hero journey.
Shifting professional ground following the Health Practitioners Competence Act 2003
generated a focus for the inquiry into practitioners’ modes of adjustment. For the
practitioners in the study, transition between the occupational roles of nursing and
midwifery comprised the possible career trajectories. A status passage, as the process of
change from one social status to another, is described and includes the transitional
experience of anticipation, expectation, contrast, and change.
The findings from this research provide illumination of the nuances of professional
decision making as a lived experience, and highlight how these practitioners dealt with
shifting meaning, values, awareness, choices, and relationships. Aspects of group agency
and identity, change management, and professional role transition were revealed. Life
pattern, revealed through narrative, was an important research construct for exposing the
ways in which the participants negotiated change, and displayed the function of their
thinking and reasoning through dilemmas. Perception of individual and group identity
revealed attitudes of esteem to the dominant discourse, and exposed dynamic tension
between work patterns and life stage. Renegotiating arrangements of personal and
professional commitment resulted from this dynamic interplay, and the relationship to
stress and burnout was explored.
