Acting Slow in a Fast World: A Phenomenological Study of Caring in the Recovery Room

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss “the slow in the fast” related to care situations in a “fast-track” hospitalsetting were the length of patients’ stay has been reduced significantly. The discussion is basedon a narrative created from observations made in a postoperative care unit where patients areintensively observed and cared for during a very short time span.We found that within the phenomenological notions of lived time, lived space and livedillness, it is possible to create an imaginative space in time – to make a time warp. Despitebeing in a setting where the objective time measure dominates, the nurse can create a rhythmof her own in the room. Thus, acting slow in the quick meeting means that nurse-patientrelationship is characterized by calmness and quietness, the nurse’s engagement in the patient’ssuffering and her help to the patient to endure the present and hold the now.