To understand power relations, it is important to consider that power is an attribute, and whoever has it at a given moment is in the condition of dominant and whoever is under its exercise is dominated. Moreover, we must consider that these positions are interchangeable, changing when relations of force change. Power relations represent the pursuit of supremacy through knowledge, with struggles for better positioning in the social structure. In this study, we analyze the effects of disciplinary power on daily (...) practices of nurses and physicians in the hospital environment, more specifically in intensive care units. From the perspective of disciplines, power is exercised in a discreet, modest, calculated and permanent way, through the establishment of rules and norms. In this context, despite the strong appreciation of a medical‐centered model, it is observed that nurses gain visibility through knowledge and the defense of institutional norms and rules, which can generate tensions in daily professional practices. (shrink)

Medical educators recognize the value of reflection for medical students and the role creative writing can play in fostering this. However, direct creative writing tasks can be challenging for many students, particularly those with limited experience in the arts and humanities. An alternative strategy is to utilize an indirect approach, engaging students with structured tasks that obliquely encourage reflection. This paper reports one such approach. We refer to this approach as in-verse reflection, playing on both the structure of the writing (...) and its novel approach to reflection. Students were invited to write, in verse-like structures, about their personal and clinical experiences as medical students. Thematic analysis of their creative outputs and reactions identified four principal themes: the challenges of life as a medical student, the emotional demands of the medical course, a sense of connectedness and solidarity with fellow students, and a sense of marginality within the hospital system. Students generally found the tasks highly engaging and conducive to reflection, producing texts representing significant insights into their experiences as medical students. The reported method offers a relatively simple, structured, and guided approach to reflective writing, adding to the repertoire of methods available to educators in the medical humanities. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I. II. III. IV. V. VI.