Abstract
In this paper, we discuss “the slow in the fast” related to care situations in a “fast-track” hospitalsetting were the length of patients’ stay has been reduced significantly. The discussion is basedon a narrative created from observations made in a postoperative care unit where patients areintensively observed and cared for during a very short time span.We found that within the phenomenological notions of lived time, lived space and livedillness, it is possible to create an imaginative space in time – to make a time warp. Despitebeing in a setting where the objective time measure dominates, the nurse can create a rhythmof her own in the room. Thus, acting slow in the quick meeting means that nurse-patientrelationship is characterized by calmness and quietness, the nurse’s engagement in the patient’ssuffering and her help to the patient to endure the present and hold the now.
Highlights
Worldwide, healthcare systems and settings are evolving rapidly
They document a decrease in length of stay (LOS) in hospital during the 2002-2012 period from 8.6 to 3.3 days for patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty
Research reports support that early mobilisation shortly after surgery reduces postoperative complications while being beneficial for the recovery process and facilitating early discharge as well as prevention of readmission
Summary
We return to the questions raised by Martinsen (2012), asking what happens to nursing when the measurable clock, the objective time has become the dominant instrument for navigating in the healthcare system and if it is possible for the patient and the nurse to engage in each other, to be joined in time in a moment of closeness. We do this by drawing on the phenomenological notions of lived time, lived space and lived illness
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