Rebecca McLaughlan
Over the past decade my work has looked at the relationship of healthcare architecture to wellbeing - for patients, their families, and healthcare staff - in relation to paediatric, palliative, oncology and mental healthcare settings. Particularly, how healthcare environments make people feel; how they support staff in their delivery of care; and how design can assist in encouraging greater engagement with healthcare services.
My current research examines how evidence influences contemporary design practice; I am particularly interested in ethnographies of architectural practice for what these can reveal about the complex factors that enable and/or obstruct the architectural embodiment of care, and the subsequent experiences of those spaces.
My current research examines how evidence influences contemporary design practice; I am particularly interested in ethnographies of architectural practice for what these can reveal about the complex factors that enable and/or obstruct the architectural embodiment of care, and the subsequent experiences of those spaces.
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(n¼20) and family members of palliative care patients
(n¼16), during an inpatient stay within one of four contemporary
palliative care facilities. Interviews were conducted to
understand how patients and families felt the built environment
supported their experience of palliative care, and the
ways that it did not. Over the past decade, a growing body
of literature has sought to understand how architectural
design can support wellbeing within palliative care settings.
Yet, despite evidence that promotes the prioritization of
privacy, homeliness, and nature, the sheer complexity of
hospital procurement often results in compromises to the
successful implementation of best design practice. Here we
argue that a deeper understanding of what these environmental
affordances mean to patients being treated for a
terminal illness, and to their families, may encourage a
necessary re-examination of the ease with which these
provisions are compromised relative to considerations of
risk, cost, or convenience (in building construction and/or
maintenance). Importantly, our findings confirm that privacy,
homeliness, and nature do not operate in isolation but in
accord to shape experiences of palliative care.
‘patronising’ and ‘pathologising discourse’ that continues to haunt contemporary receptions of Frame’s work. Within this paper I employ autoethnography to make explicit the process of working through a question that haunted me well beyond the completion of my doctoral research: whether contemporary practices of citation and acknowledgement are sufficient
to value research contributions from beyond the grave. I will examine whether Frame’s contribution is commensurate with contemporary qualifications for co-authorship and the burdens of academic practice that act to suppress these conversations.
(n¼20) and family members of palliative care patients
(n¼16), during an inpatient stay within one of four contemporary
palliative care facilities. Interviews were conducted to
understand how patients and families felt the built environment
supported their experience of palliative care, and the
ways that it did not. Over the past decade, a growing body
of literature has sought to understand how architectural
design can support wellbeing within palliative care settings.
Yet, despite evidence that promotes the prioritization of
privacy, homeliness, and nature, the sheer complexity of
hospital procurement often results in compromises to the
successful implementation of best design practice. Here we
argue that a deeper understanding of what these environmental
affordances mean to patients being treated for a
terminal illness, and to their families, may encourage a
necessary re-examination of the ease with which these
provisions are compromised relative to considerations of
risk, cost, or convenience (in building construction and/or
maintenance). Importantly, our findings confirm that privacy,
homeliness, and nature do not operate in isolation but in
accord to shape experiences of palliative care.
‘patronising’ and ‘pathologising discourse’ that continues to haunt contemporary receptions of Frame’s work. Within this paper I employ autoethnography to make explicit the process of working through a question that haunted me well beyond the completion of my doctoral research: whether contemporary practices of citation and acknowledgement are sufficient
to value research contributions from beyond the grave. I will examine whether Frame’s contribution is commensurate with contemporary qualifications for co-authorship and the burdens of academic practice that act to suppress these conversations.