The authors discuss the qualitative component of a participatory research project conducted in Toronto, Ontario, between 1999 and 2001. Injured workers, who were trained as peer researchers, conducted one-time, semistructured interviews with other injured workers (N = 17) and helped with inductive coding and analyzing the interview transcripts. The qualitative research group consisted of seven peer researchers, four academic researchers, and a community legal worker. The group recruited interviewees by advertising on bulletin boards and in newsletters and newspapers, and selected a diverse group of interviewees who had encountered problems with the return-to-work process. Interviewees believed that the process victimizes them and renders them powerless and dependent on others. Furthermore, they considered that health professionals and bureaucrats impede their rehabilitation. The authors suggest that injured workers should be included in the decision-making process of rehabilitation and rebuilding their lives.

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This article explores risk in professional nursing practice. Professional risk refers to the threat of professional discipline if it is found that a registered nurse has violated professional nursing practice standards. We argue professional risk is socially constructed and understood differently by nurse regulatory bodies, unions, professional associations and frontline nurses. Regulatory bodies emphasize professional accountability of nurses; professional associations focus on system problems in health-care; unions undertake protecting nurses' right to health and safety; and frontline nurses experience fear and uncertainty in their attempt to interpret practice standards to avoid professional discipline. Perspectives of professional risk are investigated by analyzing three professional nursing bodies' views of professional codes governing the right of nurses to refuse unsafe work assignments. The workplace dynamics surrounding work refusal experienced by frontline nurses are illustrated primarily through the lens of the 2003 SARS influenza outbreak in Ontario, Canada. We conclude that frontline nurses in Ontario are required to manage risk by following professional protocols prioritizing patient care and professional accountability which disregard the systemic, unpredictable and hazardous circumstances in their everyday practice. Moreover, we argue professional protocols cannot anticipate every eventuality in clinical practice creating the fear of professional discipline for nurses.

ResultsWe first summarize the results of the bivariate analysis in order to provide a context for the interpretation of the results of the multivariate analysis of the links between work

This paper suggests that the combination of health care restructuring, legislation expanding, and redefining a regulated health profession in Ontario, Canada, has reduced medical dominance and increased managerial dominance of health care professionals. The paper focuses on nurses and doctors, and examines the effects of the Regulated Health Professions Act and the changes occurring within the health care system on their political, clinical, and economic autonomy. It argues that there has been a redistribution of power in the health care sector and suggests that the present autonomy of health care professionals is limited, and may be limited even further as the technical side of health care is prioritized over the indeterminate side.