When nurse knows best: some aspects of nurse/doctor interaction in a casualty department

Abstract

Abstract It is commonly supposed that the working relationship between doctor and nurses is one in which the latter are subordinate to the former. An analysis of previously unpublished data from a wider study of the processes of patient categorisation in one casualty setting reveals both areas in which nurses’ work appears to move closer to the focal tasks of diagnosis and treatment in particular and also observed patterns of doctor‐nurse interaction at odds with the common supposition. Copyright © 1988, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved