Marlot Kuiper

116 Connective Routines When I was in the surgery department, I tried to make surgical team members aware of my presence and role as a researcher, I introducedmyself likewise, or was introduced to the team by the actant I was shadowing. However, because of the amount of time spent in the setting, the context of training novice professionals - and thus the presence of ‘observers’ in the operating theatre, and the fact that I was wearing exact the same surgical clothing as all the others, I had the feeling that hospital staff were not unduly conscious of me as a researcher. Although gaining formal access had been a hurdle, to me it felt like once I was in, all doors opened and remained open. Even literally because as a ‘research assistant’ I obtained an access pass, that gave me full access to the surgical department. When I got embedded in the field, it appeared to me that the participants forgot that I was there as ‘an outsider’. I was involved in various conversations, also about things that I am sure they would conceal from public scrutiny. The fact that I was actively involved in these conversations, suggests little evidence of a Hawthorne effect. I am confident that my presence as a researcher did not change the participants behaviour, once they were in the operating theatre they kept on doing what they always had been doing. Despite I felt responsible for making others aware of my position, the setting just sometimes did not allow for a clarification of roles, and then it just happened that others might have thought that “I was one of them.” For instance when a new team member entered the scene in the middle of an operation. Naturally, this raised some ethical concerns. Most probably, the anaesthesiologist in training that asked me for an ampule Lidocaine – as illustrated in the intermezzo on getting responsibilities - wasn’t aware of the fact that I was a researcher and not a clinician, as he walked in the operating theatre a few minutes after I had been introduced to the team as a researcher. If he would have known, he wouldn’t have asked me, I assume. This sometimes caused an uncomfortable feeling, as my ‘ethical radar’ told me I should move away from my participant role here. Ideally, everyone in the setting should know my position as a researcher all the time, but is showed not possible to ensure this without fierce interruptions of the natural setting, that were undesirable too. In some cases, I even somehow got forced into the position of a resident, probably because that is what professionals in the surgery department are used to. Some surgeons explicitly involved me into the surgical procedure, by exactly showing and explaining to me what they were doing, in what I call a ‘teaching-style’;