title: The link between nursing discourses and nurses' silence: implications for a knowledge-based discourse for nursing practice.
abstract: Much emphasis has been placed on the importance of nurses' articulating what they do to counteract the invisibility of nursing practice. Yet there has been minimal focus on why nurses are silent. This article explores the link between technical and caring discourses and nurses' silence and suggests an alternative discourse that conceptualizes nursing as a knowledge-driven enterprise that shifts the focus from what nurses do to what nurses know by promoting nurses' practice knowledge as a language for articulating their practice.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. connie.canam@nursing.ubc.ca
authors.forename: Connie J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Canam
mesh_terms: D001242:Assertiveness; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D018672:Community Health Planning; D004645:Empathy; D055318:Evidence-Based Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006694:Holistic Health; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D033262:Narration; D009720:Nurse Clinicians / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D033302:Postmodernism; D011209:Power, Psychological; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012660:Semantics; D012938:Social Perception