Who wants a radical nursing curriculum?

At the time when the dialogue that forms the substance of this chapter took place, the early 2020s, a pandemic had forced many to carry out their activities by means of distant computer links rather than in person on either side of a table, real or metaphorical. Dialogues such as this relied upon not always reliable devices and systems—microphones, network connections and software. In addition, human factors often injected an element of unpredictability into encounters and discussion, prominent among these the tendency of some to forget to ‘unmute’ their microphone. Our interlocutors revisit some basic and deceptively simple questions about nurses, nursing work, the training and education of nurses, and the work of those who educate and research nurses. Underlying their discussion are the twin concepts of values and complexity. Their main focus was on nurse education in the United Kingdom but occasionally they looked to the education of nurses in other countries and regions for comparison. Their intention, or to be more accurate, the intention of one of the interlocutors, was that the asking and answering of a series of questions might stimulate critical thinking and draw out underlying presuppositions regarding this topic. How far this aim was achieved is a matter for the reader to decide. The subheadings were introduced in an attempt to give structure to a sometimes wide-ranging discussion.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Complexity and Values in Nurse Education: Dialogues on Professional Education on 6 July 2022, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9780367672218