
Dr Carin Magnusson
About
Biography
Carin is a Lecturer in Health Services Research in the School of Health and Social Care. Her research interests are healthcare organisation and culture, including training, student retention and professional preparation. She has a particular interest in patient safety and issues of governance and accountability across healthcare organisations. This includes questions around how healthcare performance, quality and safety is regulated and monitored at all levels of the healthcare care system.
University roles and responsibilities
- Teaching and supervision
- Supporting with all aspects of research projects
ResearchResearch interests
Principal Investigator on the AaRK Project (Academic award and Recontextualising/Re-using Knowledge), which is exploring how newly qualified nurses use the knowledge learnt in university to allow them to organise, delegate and supervise care on the wards when working with and supervising healthcare assistants.
Research interests
Principal Investigator on the AaRK Project (Academic award and Recontextualising/Re-using Knowledge), which is exploring how newly qualified nurses use the knowledge learnt in university to allow them to organise, delegate and supervise care on the wards when working with and supervising healthcare assistants.
Teaching
- Research methods and design
- Qualitative methods and data analysis.
Module leader:
- Policy, politics and power
- Research governance
- Ethnography
- Case study methods
- Patient safety.
Publications
Background. Despite a focus on user involvement in healthcare services and education in the UK, there is little evidence of women's views of education in midwifery practice. Aim. To identify women's perceptions of clinical teaching and learning in midwifery practice, in order to inform the midwifery curriculum. Method. Qualitative structured telephone interviews were conducted with 18 women who had been involved in a larger study that had used non-participant observation visits in hospital and community environments, 12 of whom were primiparae Thematic content analysis of the data was undertaken, based on a framework used in the larger study. Findings. Women described both physical and emotional support as being offered by student midwives. Some talked about student midwives' tentativeness and reduced confidence levels during episodes of care, but most expressed appreciation for the students' presence. Conclusions. More innovative ways to involve service users in the midwifery curriculum are needed, alongside research to evaluate them. More careful consideration needs to be given for student midwives' involvement in maternity care, with better preparation for both students and women. © 2007 The Royal College of Midwives.
BACKGROUND: Little is known about how newly qualified nurses delegate to health care assistants when delivering bedside care. AIM: To explore newly qualified nurses' experiences of delegating to, and supervising, health care assistants. DESIGN: Ethnographic case studies. SETTINGS: In-patient wards in three English National Health Service (NHS) acute hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: 33 newly qualified nurses were observed, 10 health care assistants and 12 ward managers. METHODS: Participant observation and in-depth interviews. FINDINGS: We suggest that newly qualified nurses learn to delegate to, and supervise, health care assistants through re-working (`recontextualising') knowledge; and that this process occurs within a transitional (`liminal') space. CONCLUSIONS: Conceptualising learning in this way allows an understanding of the shift from student to newly qualified nurse and the associated interaction of people, space and experience. Using ethnographic case studies allows the experiences of those undergoing these transitions to be vocalised by the key people involved.
This paper describes how the use of methodological triangulation can enrich the research process. The first section of the paper provides a brief outline of a national research project that studied 'pairs' of student midwives and their mentors in practice, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the approach. It then moves on to describe the combination of methods chosen for one aspect of the project before providing illustrative examples from the data that show how the triangulation of methods gave depth to the analysis
In this article, the authors illuminate some of the hidden aspects of the mentor role, which often go unnoticed in challenging clinical settings. Four key areas have been selected for the purpose of stimulating thought and debate on current mentorship issues: preparedness for the mentor role; management of students' clinical learning and skills development; processes of practice assessment and support for the mentoring role. The findings demonstrate the need for increased funding to enhance the clinical curriculum. This includes formal protection of time for mentors to provide quality learning experiences. Investment in the mentor/student dyad is essential as successful mentoring can literally be a 'gift' to student midwives.
'Organisational governance'--the systems, processes, behaviours and cultures by which an organisation leads and controls its functions to achieve its objectives--is seen as an important influence on patient safety. The features of 'good' governance remain to be established, partly because the relationship between governance and safety requires more investigation.
The invisibility of nursing work has been discussed in the international literature but not in relation to learning clinical skills. Evans and Guile’s (Practice-based education: Perspectives and strategies, Rotterdam: Sense, 2012) theory of recontextualisation is used to explore the ways in which invisible or unplanned and unrecognised learning takes place as newly qualified nurses learn to delegate to and supervise the work of the healthcare assistant. In the British context, delegation and supervision are thought of as skills which are learnt “on the job.” We suggest that learning “on-the- job” is the invisible construction of knowledge in clinical practice and that delegation is a particularly telling area of nursing practice which illustrates invisible learning. Using an ethnographic case study approach in three hospital sites in England from 2011 to 2014, we undertook participant observation, interviews with newly qualified nurses, ward managers and healthcare assistants. We discuss the invisible ways newly qualified nurses learn in the practice environment and present the invisible steps to learning which encompass the embodied, affective and social, as much as the cognitive components to learning. We argue that there is a need for greater understanding of the “invisible learning” which occurs as newly qualified nurses learn to delegate and supervise.
Additional publications
Magnusson C, O'Driscoll M & Smith P (2007) New Roles to Support Practice Learning - Can they Facilitate Expansion of Placement Capacity. Nurse Education Today 27 (6) 643 - 650
Finnerty G, Graham L, Magnusson C, Pope R (2006) Empowering midwife mentors with adequate training and support. British Journal of Midwifery, 14 (4), 187-190
Magnusson C, Finnerty G, Pope R (2005) Methodological Triangulation in Midwifery Educational Research. Nurse Researcher, vol. 12 (4), pp. 30-39
Finnerty G, Pope R, Graham L, Magnusson C (2005) Do we value our midwife mentors? MIDIRS, 15 (2), pp. 158-162
Selected conference presentations
Magnusson C, Systems of Accountability for Patient Safety: The Case of Healthcare Associated Infections in NHS Acute Care, RCN Research Conference, Belfast, March 2013.
Magnusson, C, 'Organisational Governance: Accountability for Health Care Associated Infections' Poster, Patient Safety Congress, Birmingham, May 2010.
Magnusson, C, 'Organisational Governance: Accountability for Health Care Associated Infections', National Patient Safety Agency, London, Dec 2009.
Magnusson C, 'Governing for Patient Safety'. Workshop: Critical Perspectives on Governance. 15-17 April 2009. University of Bath.
Magnusson C, 'Organisational Governance and Patient Safety: Case of Healthcare Associated Infection (HCAI)'. 7th Annual Meeting of the Quality Improvement Research Network, 23 March 2009. Mannheim, Germany.
Magnusson, C & Horton, K, Student Retention in Higher Education: role and process of student exit interviews. Athens Institute for Education and Research, 26-29 May 2008, Athens.
Magnusson C, Volante M & Smith P, 'Supporting Student Nurses from Diverse Backgrounds'. RCN Joint Education Forums 1st International 'Beyond the borders' Conference, 5-7 July 2007 Brighton.
Smith P, Knibb W, Magnusson C & Bryan K, 'Health care assistant work: is it nursing?' Part of Symposium: What is nursing in the new millennium? 2007 RCN International Research Conference, 1-4 May 2007.
Smith P, Magnusson C, 'Emotions at Work: The Case of the British National Health Service (NHS). Royal College of Nursing Annual International Nursing Research Conference, 8-11 March 2005, Belfast.
Magnusson C, Finnerty G, Pope R, 'Methodological Triangulation in Midwifery Educational Research'. Hawaii Conference on Education, 3-6 January 2005, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Magnusson C, Crockford K, 'Mapping Clinical Placements: Putting meaning into data'. Developments in Nurse Education Conference, 10 June 2004, University of Salford.
Project reports/other publications
Pearson P, Howe A, Smith P, Steven A, Magnusson C, et al (2009) Patient safety in health care professional educational curricula: examining the learning experience, Report to the Patient Safety Research Portfolio/Department of Health. http://www.haps.bham.ac.uk/publichealth/psrp/documents/PS030_PSRP_Report_FINAL_0609.pdf
Fulop N, Chamberlain J, Baeza, Humphrey C, Magnusson C, Rothstein H (2008) Governing for Safety. King's Patient Safety and Service Quality Research Centre. Organisational Governance Programme. Working paper 1.
Horton K, Magnusson C (2008) Reducing attrition: a review of exit interview processes. Fund for Widening Participation Initiatives. University of Surrey.
Magnusson C, Smith P, Volante M (2006) Widening Participation: Supporting Student Nurses from Diverse Backgrounds. Fund for Widening Participation Initiatives. University of Surrey.
Knibb W, Smith P, Magnusson C, Bryan K (2006) The Contribution of Healthcare Assistants to Nursing. Report for the RCN (Royal College of Nursing).
Smith P, O'Driscoll M, Magnusson C, Axelrod L (2003) Higher Education Institutions Mapping Clinical Placements. University of Surrey.
Pope R, Finnerty G, Graham L, Magnusson C (2003) An investigation of the preparation and assessment for midwifery practice within a range of settings. To the funder: Hospital Savings Association. University of Surrey. ISBN: 1844690016
Graham L, Magnusson C, O'Driscoll M, Pope R, Robinson R (2003) Evaluation of Pre-Registration Nursing and Midwifery Curricula (1999).