Dr Charlotte Veal, a Research Fellow within the School of Geography and Environmental Science, presented this research at the Global-NAMRIP Festival of Early Career Research on 25 June 2019. The poster can be downloaded via the 'Useful Downloads' link below.
Consistent implementation of hand-washing within the hospital environment remains a challenge in infection prevention (IP) procedures. IP is one of a number of measures to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
A cross-disciplinary team was assembled to experiment with different ways of visualising the microbial. The poster details a comparative experimental design where nurses (n=2) performed a series of routine care procedures in a mock-ward setting where traces of coloured ultra-violet glow-powders had been purposely placed, firstly with routine hand-washing and secondly without routine hand-washing.
The results presented as a series of photos, ethnographic observations and nurse interviews explore nurse-microbial relations and the potential for affective and embodied encounters with microbial worlds to generate new insight in IP.
The team argue for creating unfamiliar aesthetics that engage the sensate as an intervention in established IP education. They also consider the potential for nurses to act as ‘microbial citizens’ as they extend their care for the human to entail the need to care for the microbial.
The authors of this research poster are Emma Roe, Charlotte Veal and Paul Hurley from the School of Geography and Environmental Science.