ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on mapping the nursing role in managing futility and dying, on experiences of inter-professional dynamics, and on the significance and impact of emotional work in everyday nursing practice. The role of nurses in managing medical futility and caring for the dying is inter-professional in character. Nurses work closely with doctors, allied health professionals and other nursing teams. Nursing is strongly influenced by inter-professional dynamics and hierarchical structures. Although incredibly difficult, maintaining sentimental order and the management of emotions remained a key responsibility of the nurse within the negotiated order of the hospital. The nurses talked consistently about the crucial influence of the way medical specialists talked to patients about palliative care and the dying process. Within sociology we have seen several key analyses of the transformation of nursing as a profession, and the politics and practices of distinction within the context of nursing compared with medical work and the medical role.
