PhD Research

My PhD was funded by a Vice Chancellor Scholarship at Sheffield Hallam University’s department of Art & Design. For the study I worked with 9 Critical Care Nurses, from 7 different countries, working in 5 different countries; the research was mostly conducted in a remote format. With each nurse I facilitated a photographic process designed to support the translation of moral distress into images. By reflecting on ethical and moral challenges experienced at work, the nurses explained and articulated specific, related situations that they had been in, verbally and through images. Each nurse’s decision about what and how to photograph revealed something about the ways that photography offers an accessible but intricate way of communicating experiences that have occurred around end-of-life care, and the difficult decisions that staff often need to take at this time. I gave each nurse photographic guidance which began with text prompts, these were taken from the sub-categories of Georgina Morley’s research into the definition of moral distress: dilemma, uncertainty, constraint, conflict and tension.*

The study resulted in 9 different sets of photos emerging from 9 different processes. As an artist-researcher I wanted to allow each participant the time and pace required to reach a finishing point, and each process was adapted to meet the needs of busy nurses with different shift patterns.

This highlighted the ways that my professional art and social practice background enabled me to respond in the moment to evolving needs, giving tailored suggestions and guidance relevant to each process. The thesis articulates this in more depth and emphasises the benefits of building a creative career, often outside of formal or institutional constraints and what this can bring to the research community.

*Morley G, Bradbury-Jones C, Ives J. What is ‘moral distress’ in nursing? A feminist empirical bioethics study. Nursing Ethics. 2020;27(5):1297-1314. doi:10.1177/0969733019874492