What emotions do you associate with nursing? In this episode, Frances finds out about the history of the different feelings linked with nursing care: from faith, fortitude and love to the more recent focus on compassion and the "6 Cs". She meets historian of nursing and emotions Dr Sarah Chaney, who explains how emotions change over time, and why it's important not to make assumptions about what feelings are essential for care. Artist Rachel Mulligan and nurse Ofrah Muflahi explain the artistic project they both worked on to create new stained glass windows depicting the complexity of modern d ..read more

Episode 6 delves more deeply into the themes from our exhibition, "A History of Care or Control?" on the history of learning disability nursing. Content warning: This episode contains a number of terms from learning disability history that are offensive today, especially in the interview with Simon who discusses them as an important part of understanding the history and attitudes towards disabled people. First, hear from writer and performer Emily Curtis and her sister Sophie Potter, who has Down's Syndrome. Emily recently performed her play "Sophie", at the RCN, which explores the sisters' sh ..read more

Episode 5 is here and we're taking a broad look at mental health nursing. We've got a real range of perspectives on this one. We start with an interview with mental health nurse Simon Arday and Peer Involvement Worker Kojo Bonsu. Kojo shares his experiences of the mental health system, both as a service user and an employee. And Simon speaks about what it means to be a mental health nurse. In this conversation Simon and Kojo are incredibly generous with their experiences and expertise; we cover parity of esteem, racial profiling, problems with the current system and so much more. I also talk t ..read more

Our fourth epsiode is finally here! We are so excited to share this one. It's all about D/deaf nursing and mental health care. Frances talks to Herbert Klein, Deaf Advisor, and Jennifer Meek, Deaf Recovery Community Nurse based in Birmingham. Hear from them about why having Deaf professionals in health care is vital for strong communication and proper diganoses for Deaf people. Herbert also recalls his work around building a mental health vocabulary in British Sign Language, and how to understand Deaf peoples' experience of voices and delusions. Next up Frances chats with Deaf poet and mental ..read more

This one is all about public health. But what does that actually involve? Frances explores a few perspectives of public health past and present - she chats to Helen Donovan and Helen Bedford who have dedicated their life to public health, and are our go-to experts for anything vaccination related. Historian Sally Frampton then gives us some historical context, looking back to 19th Century measures to tackle smallpox, and how the explosion of print journalism at that time affected public health messaging. And we finish up with a chat with Ying Butt, who tells us how public health caught her att ..read more

Our second episode takes the RCN's 2018 exhibition The Wandering Womb as a starting point. Please be aware, we touch on some difficult issues in this one, including eugenics and baby loss. Frances chats to historian Professor Tracey Loughran about her research into women's psychological, emotional and bodily health in Britain. Tracey tells us about women's magazines and how much they can tell us about women in the late twentieth century. Nurse Consultant Debby Holloway and Senior Lecturer Dr Wendy Norton bring us up to present day women's health. Frances asks them what misunderstandings they s ..read more

In this first episode of Past Caring, a podcast from the Royal College of Nursing Library and Archive, Frances Reed explores the essential role that nurses have played in tackling pandemics throughout history. She chats to: infection control expert Rose Gallagher who is supporting the COVID-19 response today; historian Mark Honigsbaum on the role nurses played in the 1918 'spanish flu' pandemic; Jason Warriner, a nurse who remembers all too well the emergence of HIV and AIDS in the 1980s; and artist Mary Beth Heffernan, who created an innovative approach to humanising hazmats suits during the ..read more