Shannon Clark

Bio: Shannon Clark is an academic researcher from University of Canberra. The author has contributed to research in topics: District nurse & Health policy. The author has an hindex of 9, co-authored 17 publications receiving 184 citations. Previous affiliations of Shannon Clark include Australian National University & University of Toronto.

Aged care nurse practitioners in Australia: evidence for the development of their role

Abstract: Aim. To consider evidence surrounding the emerging role of nurse practitioners in Australia with a particular focus on the provision of healthcare to older people. Methods. Methods used included keyword, electronic database and bibliographic searches of international literature, as well as review of prominent policy reports in relation to aged care and advanced nursing roles. Results. This paper reports on evidence from systematic reviews and international studies that show that nurse practitioners improve healthcare outcomes, particularly for hard to service populations. It also maps out the limited Australian evidence on the impact of nurse practitioners' care in aged care settings. Conclusions. If Australia is to meet the health needs of its ageing population, more evidence on the effectiveness, economic viability and sustainability of models of care, including those utilising nurse practitioners, is required.

Contesting facts about wind farms in Australia and the legitimacy of adverse health effects

Abstract: The development of wind energy in Australia has been subject to ongoing public debate and has been characterised by concerns over the health impacts of wind turbines. Using discursive psychology, we examine 'wind turbine syndrome' as a contested illness and analyse how people build and undermine divergent arguments about wind-farm health effects. This article explores two facets of the dispute. First, we consider how participants construct 'facts' about the health effects of wind farms. We examine rhetorical resources used to construct wind farms as harmful or benign. Second, we examine the local negotiation of the legitimacy of health complaints. In the research interviews examined, even though interviewees treat those who report experiencing symptoms from wind farms as having primary rights to narrate their own experience, this epistemic primacy does not extend to the ability to 'correctly' identify symptoms' cause. As a result, the legitimacy of health complaints is undermined. Wind turbine syndrome is an example of a contested illness that is politically controversial. We show how stake, interest and legitimacy are particularly relevant for participants' competing descriptions about the 'facts' of wind turbine health effects.

‘I’ve heard wonderful things about you’: how patients compliment surgeons

Abstract: This investigation was motivated by physician reports that patient compliments often raise ‘red flags’ for them, raising questions about whether compliments are being used in the service of achieving some kind of advantage. Our goal was to understand physician discomfort with patient compliments through analyses of audiotaped surgeon-patient encounters. Using conversation analysis, we demonstrate that both the placement and design of compliments are consequential for how surgeons hear and respond to them. The compliments offered after treatment recommendations are neither designed nor positioned to pursue institutional agendas and are responded to in ways that are largely consistent with compliment responses in everyday interaction, but include modifications that preserve surgeons’ expertise. In contrast, some compliments offered before treatment recommendations pursue specific treatments and engender surgeons’ resistance. Other compliments offered before treatment recommendations do not overtly pursue institutionally-relevant agendas—for example, compliments offered in the opening phase of the visit. We show how these compliments may but need not foreshadow a patient’s upcoming agenda. This work extends our understanding of the interactional functions of compliments, and of the resources patients use to pursue desired outcomes in encounters with healthcare professionals.

Notes on Methodology

Abstract: Documentation created as part of the Perceptual Form of the City, a research project investigating the individual’s perception of the urban landscape. Includes a review of techniques used, general critique and future proposals.

Initiating decision-making in neurology consultations: recommending versus option-listing and the implications for medical authority

Abstract: This article compares two practices for initiating treatment decision-making, evident in audio-recorded consultations between a neurologist and 13 patients in two hospital clinics in the UK. We call these 'recommending' and 'option-listing'. The former entails making a proposal to do something; the latter entails the construction of a list of options. Using conversation analysis (CA), we illustrate each, showing that the distinction between these two practices matters to participants. Our analysis centres on two distinctions between the practices: epistemic differences and differences in the slots each creates for the patient's response. Considering the implications of our findings for understanding medical authority, we argue that option-listing - relative to recommending - is a practice whereby clinicians work to relinquish a little of their authority. This article contributes, then, to a growing body of CA work that offers a more nuanced, tempered account of medical authority than is typically portrayed in the sociological literature. We argue that future CA studies should map out the range of ways - in addition to recommending - in which treatment decision-making is initiated by clinicians. This will allow for further evidence-based contributions to debates on the related concepts of patient participation, choice, shared decision-making and medical authority.

The Interactional Organization of Self-praise Epistemics, Preference Organization, and Implications for Identity Research

Abstract: This article contributes to a social psychological understanding of identity by identifying some features of the interactional organization of self-praise. Early conversation analytic work on the e...