Professional Responsibility and Conflict of Interest

While religion, law, and social mores may seem reliable guides in the professions, I argue here that traditional ethics escapes some of the limitations born by these three approaches

Young Adults' Experience of Loneliness in London's Most Deprived Areas

Young adults (16-24 years old) are currently the loneliest group in Western countries. In particular, young adults of lower socio-economic status (SES) living in the most deprived areas are loneliest in the United Kingdom. This mixed-methods study explored the experience of loneliness among this under-explored demographic in London. Using a novel free association technique, the experience of loneliness was found to be characterized by: a sense of isolation, negative emotions and thoughts, coping and a positive orientation to aloneness. An exploration of these themes revealed that: one can feel isolated or excluded even when surrounded by people; the experience of loneliness is accompanied by a set of interrelated feelings and thoughts like rumination; and technological and/or non-technological outlets can be used to cope. Social media play both a positive and negative role in loneliness, and loneliness is not always experienced negatively. The quantitative data indicated that this sample was lonely. By providing insight into young adults' loneliness, the findings indicate what types of interventions are likely to diminish it

"UNRAVELLING" EXPLORING THE EXPERIENCE AND MEANING OF SPIRITUAL DECONSTRUCTION

The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experience and meaning of spiritual deconstruction for post-evangelicals or fundamentalist Christians, what influenced this experience and how this experience impacted their lives (identity, faith, family, community etc.). Although there have been studies on disaffiliation and deconversion, there had been no phenomenological studies on the experience of deconstruction for former dedicated post-evangelicals. Six adults who experienced spiritual deconstruction were interviewed. Through Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), five main themes were identified: Spiritual Devotion, Internalizing and Conforming, The Unraveling, Leaving: Attempt at Reform and Loss and Finding a New Way. These themes revealed the complex experience of unravelling one’s faith. Findings provide a valuable contribution to the limited literature on spiritual deconstruction, meaning and identity . Understanding this experience will aid future mental health practitioners and people process what is a significant and often times difficult life transition. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed

The Glass Jaw. The Presence of Incivility, Conflict, and Bullying in Disempowering Workplaces: A Study of Middle-Level Managers in HEIs

Middle-level managers at HEIs experience stress-related conflicts that include incivility and bullying. There is a gap in the literature regarding middle-level managers’ contributions to improving interpersonal relationships in the workplace and the type of conflict-management training most suited to middle-level managers in HEIs when incivility, conflict, and bullying are present. This qualitative design study sought to understand conflict management from the perspective of HEI middle-level managers within the manager-to-subordinate relationship. The study examined the lived experiences of 10 HEI middle-level managers with coded data revealing four overall themes: structural challenges, sources of conflict, conflict training, and managing conflict. The results of this study showed that middle-level managers did not utilize knowledge obtained in conflict-management training, instead preferring to create their conflictmanagement tactics and strategies. The study’s results may help increase knowledge of conflict management for middle-level managers in HEIs and a greater understanding of the tools needed to work through incivility and bullying

Moral Distress, Burnout, and Moral Injury in Healthcare Professionals

For doctors and other health care professionals, experiences of care too often involve burnout and moral distress. Making both visible to begin addressing them takes up the main concern of my thesis. Burnout and moral distress swallow a life. Suddenly you aren’t going on that shopping trip with friends, you can forget about going to that movie or play. You are too tired to drag yourself out of bed, instead getting caught in a cycle of sleep and work with no time for a break or even to process what happened last shift. Who’s going to have a nice relaxing day to yourself? Not you. You are instead going to stew in your stress and review situations over and over again to try to find what you could have done different, done better. A nice dinner with family sounds nice, until you realize that they don’t understand when you talk about work, they get uncomfortable when you mention the patient who died. A night out with friends seems like fun, too bad you can’t remember it. At least the alcohol numbed the pain for a while. If someone notices, says something, it’s so easy to say, “I\u27m fine”, because how could they understand anyways? There is a prevailing sense of frustration, entrapment, and hopelessness that starts to drown you, and the next shift looms with crushing dread. In my research, primarily inspired by and based on my work as a Patient Care Technician, I sought to understand the effects and experiences of one of these challenging topics, burnout, and moral distress in healthcare professionals. I used semi-structured interviews with volunteering healthcare professionals and utilized personal narratives and experiences of participants since the experience of suffering, it is often noted, is not effectively conveyed by statistics or graphs. The texture of dire affliction is perhaps best felt in the gritty details of biography 15. I interviewed four healthcare professionals, all of whom work primarily in a hospital setting, and talked informally with many others who did not wish to conduct a full interview. I additionally utilized participant observation through my position as a patient care tech working in the Acute Care Unit (ACU) and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to help me better understand the experiences and perspectives of those who I interviewed

A QUALITATIVE EXAMINATION OF THE AGENCY OF WOMEN IN THEIR 30S AND 40S WHO USE DATING APPLICATIONS

The use of dating applications (apps) to find romantic and sexual partners is widespread across age groups, however, there is a paucity of research on dating apps with those in middle adulthood. Sexual script theory suggests that women’s agency (i.e. the ability to act in one’s own best interest) may be impacted by expectations from an inherently sexualized context, such as dating apps. Feminist theory contends that women’s agency is complicated by gender socialization due to the imbalance of power in society that greatly favors men. In this study seventeen women aged 30 to 49 completed in-depth semi-structured interviews, and their responses were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Data analysis resulted in identifying themes related to how dating apps pose challenges to women’s agency, the casual nature of apps, positive aspects of dating apps in general and specific to women’s agency, differences and similarities to meeting in-person, and how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting dating app experiences. These results highlight the complicated process of navigating dating app use for women aged 30 to 49 and call for cultural changes relating to gender socialization

Communicating impermanence : temporal structuring of the COVID-19 pandemic in everyday organizational life

Impermanence is an essential yet understudied aspect of organizational communication. This study addresses the research question: How do people communicate about (or avoid communicating about) impermanence in the workplace? Taking impermanence—defined simply as the fact that reality is constantly in flux, transient, and effervescent—as a fundamental condition of life, this dissertation explores to what extent impermanence can be identified through organizational communication. During the onset of an unprecedented cosmological event (Weick, 1995), the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork through an established, mid- size non-profit organization while employed in a leadership role. Building upon 10 particular actions Weick (2012) used to describe organizational impermanence—believing, discarding, doubting, enacting, interrupting, labeling, reasoning, repeating, seeing, and substantiating— observations were taken on how members accepted and avoided the pandemic through everyday communication. These 10 actions have been further arranged through existing models of temporal structuring (Orlikowski & Yates, 2002; Ballard & Seibold, 2003, 2004) along five multidirectional feedback cycles—processes of confidence, awareness, influence, continuity, and affirmation. Further analysis explores how these cycles identify and express the lived experience of impermanence. I aim to further the paradigm of "the impermanent organization" (Weick, 2012), as well as temporal structuring and feedback cycles, so that researchers have more tools to describe and identify how impermanence is (or is not) communicated in the workplace. Finally, I will offer some practical recommendations for leadership and members of organizations on how to adapt to and cope with impermanence in daily life.Communication Studie

Navigating the Impostor Phenomenon: The Lived Experience of Nurse Leaders

The Institute of Medicine identifies nurses as being in a position to become a powerful force for change in our healthcare system through their leadership. The impostor phenomenon is a psychological pattern in which individuals doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments, or may have internalized fears of being exposed. In a time when nurse leaders are needed the most, these feelings may prevent nurses from advancing their careers and to lead. While a plethora of studies have examined this phenomenon and its negative impacts to mental health and career progression, there is little on the experience among nurses and none among nursing leaders or how to manage it effectively. Fellows of the American Academy of Nurses are considered nursing’s most accomplished leaders in education, management, practice, and research. These successful leaders have been recognized for their extraordinary contributions to nursing and health care. This qualitative study used a phenomenological method designed to gain insight into how these successful leaders have experienced impostor feelings. Ten nurse leaders were interviewed about their career progression, and their experiences with the impostor phenomenon were revealed. Findings were analyzed and the six essential themes that were illuminated from those shared experiences were: (a) Welcoming Opportunities, (b) Extended Sphere of Support, (c) Willingness to be Courageous, (d) Embracing the Journey, (e) Willingly Expressing Humility and Authenticity, and (f) Navigating the Impostor Process. The findings from this study will contribute to the body of knowledge about the impostor phenomenon within the context of the nursing profession and leadership and may benefit other nursing professionals experiencing similar feelings to mitigate them