The ethics application I wrote about quite a while ago, regarding a new large observation/interview/survey study, has now finally been approved! This means that a new eHealth research adventure will now begin for the research team [Read more…]
Tag: Observation
First observation day, part 3: challenges
In my two last blog posts, I wrote about some of the positive aspects of participant observation I experienced during my first day out on the field as a researcher. I am now closing this short series of posts by addressing the side of this kind of observation I felt was more challenging:
- The frustration of not understanding everything at once. There is something exhilarating about being immersed in a work environment that outsiders seldom get to experience and uncovering new knowledge about the work practice under focus. However, not everything one observes can be correctly understood or interpreted at once (especially when one is new to the domain of interest). Throughout this first day, I was thus often left wondering what the medical staff were doing and why they were doing it. I did not always get the opportunity to ask about what I had seen and when I did, it generally was some time after the observation of the specific event I had questions about. As such, I discovered that if I wanted to be successful as an observer, I needed to learn to be patient and accept that I might have to wait some time – maybe even until another observation day – before getting the answers to my interrogations.
- The “behave as if I weren’t there” awkwardness. I was at times uneasy in my observer role, and struggled to find a way to observe that did not feel like I was “stalking” the nursing staff. Not knowing whether they felt comfortable with my watching over their shoulder (which I sometimes needed to do), I started to feel quite self-conscious about my being there. I was worried about my presence being distracting or even annoying to the people observed, something I of course absolutely wanted to avoid. I did not ask about how the situation made them feel at the end of my shift – should I have dared to? – but do wonder whether they thought the situation was as awkward as I felt it was…
- Staying focused on the activities of relevance. A few times throughout the day, I let myself get distracted by events happening in the room that were not actually part of the scope of my research. For instance, I once became so entranced with the patient’s post-operative care that the operating nurse had to actually tap my shoulder in order to call my attention to the fact that she was going to start documenting the procedure…
- Staying emotionally detached. Working within healthcare, it is obvious that one will be confronted to difficult circumstances, and it seems only normal to be touched and feel empathy for the people involved. However, it is at the same time important to develop strategies in order to keep a healthy emotional distance from the patients and nursing staff. This is necessary in order not only to do good work, but also to protect oneself and make sure that working out on the field does not negatively affect one’s own life. That being said, I found it very hard not to let myself become overly emotional over the situations I was witnessing during my observation day. This is something I feel I really need to work more on until my next day out on the field.
First observation day, part 2: the perks of immersion
When it comes to analyzing work practice, I have found that one of the main challenges for the researcher is to learn to “speak the language” of the observed population. The researcher needs to develop an understanding for those aspects of the work practice that practitioners don’t explicitly mention, but which nonetheless are a significant part of their work and work environment. The problem is that the more experience we have with doing something, the more difficult it becomes to verbalize how we go about doing it. In addition, many work environment factors are simply difficult to put into words.
Observation provides, to a certain extent, a solution to that problem as it makes it unnecessary for the observed individuals to verbalize every aspect of their work. Until recently, my experience with observation within healthcare was limited to watching video recordings of emergency medical interventions and a live streaming of an open-heart surgery. Those instances provided me with a basic understanding of the workflow of an operation and the specific role taken on by each clinician involved in the intervention. However, I realized during my observation day at the Department of Pediatric Surgery that I had overlooked several essential factors specific to the work environment of clinical nurses. This realization came from the fact that for the first time, I wasn´t an outsider looking in any more, but immersed in the work environment I wanted to learn about. This made for a very different, and instructive, experience.
Here are the different “perks” I have identified in relation to my immersion into nurses’ work environment:
- More than just a clinical understanding for nurses’ work environment, I got an insight into the “feeling” of it. By wearing the same clothes, sharing the same space and following the same daily routine as nurses, I was able to experience, albeit to a limited degree, how it feels like to be a nurse. This led to my uncovering aspects of the work environment I had not thought of so far.
- Being a participant observer, I felt that I disposed of a higher degree of freedom when it came to deciding what to focus on. I was able to move freely within the operation theatre (being of course careful not to be in anyone’s way in order not to disrupt anybody’s workflow) and could choose what and whom to focus my attention on. While it is the camera’s positioning that determines and limits the field of vision on a video recording, immersion makes it possible to continuously change observation angle and thus to look at anything that catches one’s attention.
- In contrast to my previous experiences with video recordings, where one generally only has access to a specific sequence of the work practice of interest, I got a much more complete picture of the workflow this time around. Being there for a whole day, I was able to see not only how an operation unfolds, but also, among other things, how an operation theatre is prepared, how nurses are made aware that the operation is about to begin as well as what happens in the operation theatre once the patient has left. This gave me a better and more accurate understanding of the context in which operations take place at a hospital.
In my next and last blog post within this short series of posts about my first experience as a participant observer, I will address a few aspects that I felt were a bit more challenging in regard with being out on the field.
First observation day, part 1: facilitating interactions
Last week, I had my first observation day at the Uppsala University Hospital, more specifically at the Department of Pediatric Surgery. After introducing myself to the nursing staff attending the morning briefing, I was invited to spend the next few hours in company of an operating nurse and an assistant nurse working in tandem in one of the department’s operation theatres. The purpose of this observation day was not to formally collect data for a study, but rather to familiarize myself a bit more with nurses’ work environment in preparation for the DISA project. This first experience as an observer has led me to reflect on different aspects related to being out on the field as a researcher. I thus thought that I would write a short series of blog posts to share those reflections with you. This first post within the series is dedicated to interactions between researcher and members of the “target population” – and how I feel that observation facilitates this kind of exchanges.
Throughout my observation day, what struck me the most was probably how easy it was to interact with the nurses present – how friendly and open they were to my being there, and how naturally exchanges and conversations took place, even at unexpected moments. For instance, an anesthetic nurse told me about a problematic aspect of using multiple digital systems while quickly fetching a cup of tea in the personal lounge, and another nurse expressed how energy consuming the introduction of a new system was while passing me in the corridor. Coffee breaks and downtimes during operations (for example while waiting for lab test results) were opportunities for longer conversations with the operating nurse and the assistant nurse I was paired with. During those conversations, I was even able to ask specific questions about what I had seen or heard, which gave me a more accurate understanding of how nurses use and experience IT systems in their daily working life.
As such, I realized that a very significant advantage of being an observer was that I was making myself available to the department´s nurses on their own terms. While interviews typically require participants to come and talk to the interviewer at a specific time and during a pre-determined duration, observation lets them free to choose whether they want to interact with the researcher. If they are willing to do so, they can do it knowing that they are the ones choosing what the conversation is about and how long it lasts, being free to interrupt the discussion and resume their work at any moment. I felt that this was a sort of “win-win” situation for the nurses and I, as they had the possibility to tell me about the aspects of their work with digital systems that they felt were significant without additional stress or constraints while I was able to get an in-depth insight into their work and work environment.
In my next post, I will address another aspect of observation that I experienced as particularly positive: the immersion into the work environment.