In this article we examine the nature of intimacy and knowing in the nurse-patient relationship in the context of advanced nursing roles in fertility care. We suggest that psychoanalytical approaches to emotions may contribute to an increased understanding of how emotions are managed in advanced nursing roles. These roles include nurses undertaking tasks that were formerly performed by doctors. Rather than limiting the potential for intimacy between nurses and fertility patients, we argue that such roles allow nurses to provide increased continuity of care. This facilitates the management of emotions where a feeling of closeness is created while at the same time maintaining a distance or safe boundary with which both nurses and patients are comfortable. We argue that this distanced or 'bounded' relationship can be understood as a defence against the anxiety of emotions raised in the nurse-fertility patient relationship.

This prospective study demonstrates the feasibility and outcome of embryo transfer performed by nursing staff with medical cover available. Of 771 patients who had embryo transfer, 679 (88%) had their embryo transfer performed by a nurse. In 92 cases (12%) a doctor performed the embryo transfer, either as the first operator, or having been brought in to assist the nurse who experienced difficulty. The pregnancies per transfer for nurse transfer was 246/679 (36%) and where a doctor performed the transfer 20/68 (29%). These data show a high comparable success rate when a nurse performed the embryo transfer, and a low incidence of direct medical involvement.

Ovarian morphology overlaps in PCOS cases and controls, emphasising the importance of considering clinical/biochemical presentation together with imaging ovarian morphology in the diagnosis of PCOS.

This paper discusses data from a case study of fertility nursing practice. An ethnographic case study approach using participant observation and nine semi-structured interviews with staff and patients was undertaken. The data were analysed thematically and these themes are discussed in this paper. We present the meaning a small group of nurses working in a fertility unit in the UK attach to new roles and the ways in which changes in practice may be influenced. The nurses in this study believed that nature of the task demanded changes to practice and they identified personal, interpersonal and socio-cultural factors which influenced these changes. These new roles facilitated greater continuity of care for patients. This paper discusses the effects of these new roles on knowing and intimacy in nurse - patient relationships. The data suggests that new nursing roles, which are based on "traditional" nursing and "new" technical skills, are fragile and may not be shared across a professional community.