From Practice to Theory – How the Basic Concepts Appears in a Perioperative Practice

Aim: The aim of the study was to describe how the basic concepts, human being, health, suffering, caring and culture appear in perioperative practice in order to obtain an understanding of the concepts in practice. Methods: A hermeneutic text interpretation of results from ten previous studies and reports from perioperative research meetings with coresearchers was conducted in order to gain an understanding of the concepts in practice. Results: The basic concepts were understood as; The human being – the patient and the nurse. Patient is a suffering human being who has been betrayed by the body; a body that needs to undergo surgery. Nurse the caring human being, whose ethos is embedded in human dignity and emerges in their caring acts. Health – to be a unique human being: someone who wants to be taken seriously wants to become involved, to be considered a resource and to establish a communion. Suffering – a struggle between good and evil: Suffering exists in different forms. Suffering in care can be a result of the staff behaviour towards the patient and towards each other, how caring/the work is organized, or how the nurses’ time with the patients is planned. Caring – to be there for the patient; the nurses’ care for the patient, taking the patient seriously and safeguarding the patient’s dignity. The culture – material and spiritual culture: human dignity is the ethos of the perioperative culture and appears as confirmed or violated dignity and value conflicts.