Cultures of Control: A Historical Analysis of the Development of Infection Control Nursing in Ireland

Abstract

Responses to the rise of antimicrobial resistance in Europe and North America included establishment of special hospital infection control teams of a microbiologist and a nurse. Based on the testimonies of seven infection control nurses in Irish hospitals appointed during 1979–1990, this article examines the early development and expressions of their disciplinary practice.1 Fairman’s model of collaborative practice was used to examine the context in which the role emerged, the places practice was negotiated and mutually constructed, and exemplars of collaborative practice. Aspects of the relationship between theory and method in Wengraf’s biographical narrative interpretive method (BNIM) used to generate the nurses’ accounts of their early experiences in the role are highlighted. Practice was contingent on effective negotiation of places of practice, and disciplinary practice bore hallmarks of collaborative practice. The infection control nurse transitioned from conspicuous outsider and object of suspicion to valued resource for patients and staff. Infection control nursing came to be a prototype for new specialist nursing roles in hospitals.