Gary Rolfe

Emeritus Professor in the College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@PDarbyshire Best research innovation? Dropping out of the REF and focussing on research that will actually make a difference to nurses and service users. Or was that just a dream?

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

Hi Nigel – glad to hear that things are going so well

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@MoiraDelaney66 @ProfJuneG @Zelina76 You should absolutely go for it, but choose your supervisor with care

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@ProfJuneG @MoiraDelaney66 @Zelina76 Reflexivity in action! We all learn through interaction with one another. As someone famous once said, Understanding involves coming to an understanding with others.

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@Zelina76 @MoiraDelaney66 @ProfJuneG Agree absolutely. A bachelors degree was originally a general education that qualified you for nothing. A Masters was a qualification to practice and a doctorate was a qualification to teach, and was not always research-based.

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@ProfJuneG @Zelina76 Sure - the only point I was trying to make is that credibility can't be objectively measured by counting academic qualifications

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@MoiraDelaney66 @ProfJuneG @Zelina76 And don't forget that a PhD was originally a teaching qualification, not a research training

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@MoiraDelaney66 @ProfJuneG @Zelina76 Ha ha! There's nothing to beat a good argument

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@Zelina76 @ProfJuneG Credibility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@ProfJuneG You too - we must do it again sometime

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

Academia is an option at any point in a nurse's career, but we should recognise the difference between teaching nurses and teaching nursing. Almost any academic potentially has something worthwhile to teach to nurses, but can someone who has never practised teach nursing?

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@brissydeb @ProfJuneG Absolutely! Willingness to learn is essential, but the most important source of learning for any practice discipline is from practice itself. In order to learn about the practice of nursing we have to experience the practice of nursing.

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@Zelina76 @ProfJuneG Maintaining clinical credibility is a big problem. Whilst the move of nurse education and research from the health service to the H.E. sector in the 1990s was positive in many ways, it opened up a chasm between academia and practice. Universities do not support or reward practice

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@brissydeb @ProfJuneG Happy to agree to disagree. The issue is too big and important to be solved on Twitter!

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@ProfJuneG I think the same argument applies to research. I challenge the idea of the dispassionate researcher qualified to investigate any topic whatsoever. Research requires a sympathetic understanding of the issues being studied. Nursing research is best done by experienced nurses.

[Gary Rolfe @GaryRolfe3]

@PhilosophyMttrs Is there any way of taking them both out?