Where does this quotation end?

….said my prof as she tried to unravel my latest draft paper. A good question and one I have been mulling over at length.  In the spirit of academic metaphors, at the moment I feel my reading is like a game of pick up sticks or perhaps Jenga. I can’t touch one thing, or idea, without bumping up against another.  A good friend who has been through this told me that “after the proposal” was the best time in her professional doctorate, you have the ground work done and can actually get on and do the thing you’ve been working towards for (often) years.  That bit before the proposal though, and before the comprehensive exam? That’s the teetering Jenga tower, the mess of sticks … the time when you realise how much you don’t know and what it’s going to take to stand up in front of the comprehensive exam panel, your supervisory committee and convince them that you’re ready to get going.

So my reading has been around theory, both queer and feminist, and then a quick tour around my conceptual framework – meaning what concepts will be foundational to my future work and how do they fit together? My research question is how do LGB radiation therapists manage their identities at work? How do they negotiate the complexities of coming out – and how do they decide? When you unpack this idea it’s obvious some work will have to be done on non-heterosexual identities, what “being out” means and why it’s (still) an issue. Our fundamental idea of being “professional” relies on an underlying and usually unarticulated assumption that the person at work is male (rational, unemotional), straight, white, able bodied etc. (Colgan and Rumens, 2015).  So sexual orientation in the workplace is an area of research that has examined this tension – with a small subset that looks at the health care workplace.  It’s also good to see a growing body of work on improving the experience of queer patients, this will also be important to look at – although most of it assumes they (we) are a “problem” to fix  (with our inconveniently high rates of cancer, mental illness and whatnot).

From my own experiences, I think the results won’t be unequivocally “this is what it is like”, but I do have a sense that some of the issues above will be important. There are likely others that I can’t see yet, or might not know until I have talked to the participants of the study. But I’ve already found a chance reference; discussion or recommendation can open up a new way of looking at something.  A paper I found by accident, for example, that looked at how LGB practitioners manage clinical examination of their patients (including scenarios where they may have a chaperone for an opposite-sex patient). The authors concluded that:

 (LGB) healthcare professionals engage in a complex interplay of identity management strategies to avoid homophobic abuse; as a signal of safety from homophobia and understanding for their lesbian, gay, and bisexual patients and as a desexualisation strategy principally for gay men and their women patients. (Riordan, p. 1227)

 I love the idea of “a signal of safety” – healthcare professionals flagging to queer patients that they are understood, and that they are safe to come out. We strive for that level of cultural competence and empathy for many different groups; it’s rarely discussed for queer patients.  One part of the Jenga tower, one of the entangled sticks but hopefully one that will remain.

Concept map exercise

References:

Colgan, F., & Rumens, N. (2015). Understanding sexual orientation at work. In F. Colgan & N. Rumens (Eds.), Sexual orientation at work: Contemporary issues and perspectives. New York, NY, USA: Routledge

Riordan, D. C. (2004). Interaction strategies of lesbian, gay, and bisexual healthcare practitioners in the clinical examination of patients: qualitative study. BMJ, 328(7450), 1227–1229

Metaphorically speaking

As we crash land into 2017 – and the start of my “serious” research year – I am starting to feel the weight of this doctorate settling on me. Perhaps like the famous elephant being felt by several blind men in search of THE TRUTH. I remember this feeling from my time as CAMRT president, looking back I have a sense of wonder that I actually worked full time, carried on raising two children and simultaneously managed a huge work load as board chair (including hiring a new CE in complete ignorance of executive searching and an inordinate amount of travel).  I am in awe of my past self, and wondering if that was a fluke or I can manage something similar with this next stage of research – despite having less brain cells, fluctuating hormone levels that make me doubt my sanity and no letup in the demands of an equally hormone-raddled 15 year old and a 10 year old entering the years of sarcasm and parental-loathing.

But when all else fails, there are always books, and stories, and language to give us solace. Reading any blog, or listening to people talk about their doctorates you can’t help but trip over the word “journey”.  We communicate with metaphor – after finishing my narrative inquiry course I am constantly struck how much we explain something by using another thing! Even my EdD notebook has the words “Go your own way” on the front*. Illness narratives – or any kind of quest – are often framed as journeys. Arthur Frank described the “shipwreck” metaphor that people with serious illness often use. Picking up the pieces, losing their compass, feeling adrift, rebuilding the boat, getting back afloat…. The doctoral journey metaphor is a well-worn path (see what I did there?)  – we encounter bumps in the road, sudden and unexpected turns, the journey may be arduous and long but we can often see the end of the road and feel triumphant when we reach it.

For your education and amusement, then, I have collated an initial list of other metaphors used by my EdD cohort and professors this weekend. Enjoy them and feel free to post others you have used/know in the comments!

The builder: the research process relies on a strong foundation; a good blueprint is essential, take time to lay the foundations well before you move ahead because you want your final edifice to be sturdy and strong.

The oil slick: your project may look amorphous and unformed, you may need to contain the boundaries, don’t let it spill over or you will lose control.

The dance: you need to start slowly and learn the basic steps, once you get into the rhythm you will gain confidence, eventually you will throw yourself into a whirlwind of artistic self-expression that is uniquely yours.

The sculptor: out of the raw clay of passion and intent will emerge the idiosyncratic and beautiful piece of work that is your contribution to the academic world. Take care to hone your tools, and think twice before you chip off a chunk, you may need to measure twice and cut once (OK, that one is a tailoring metaphor….)

The party: picking up the basics of your theoretical framework and positionality is like coming late to a party (except probably there is no wine, and you don’t have to dress up). There is a conversation going on around you (probably about Foucault) and you have to place yourself within it, figuring out what you need to say to add to the ongoing discussion.

The lightbulb: this is a bit of a cheat but one member of my cohort suggested her dissertation should be called “fumbling around in the fucking dark”. I liked it so much I decided it needed to be kept for posterity.

*The only excuse I have for this is that it was 50% off.