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“I Can’T Be The Nurse I Want To Be”: Stories Of Moral Distress In Pediatric Oncology Nurses’ Caregiving Narratives, Monica L. Molinaro

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis presents the caregiving narratives of nine pediatric oncology nurses that illustrate the embeddedness of their caregiving and moral distress within institutional contexts that limit their capacity to be the nurses they want to be. Informed by the concepts of moral distress, bearing witness, and narrative repair, a critical narrative methodology was employed to examine the nurses’ caregiving experiences in relation to broader discourses and neoliberal, corporatized health care settings. The nurses’ stories were marked by ambivalence and moral distress and are presented in four narrative themes, which illustrate: the nurses’ struggles to complete their tasks and address multiple …