A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY TO UNDERSTAND NURSE AND RESIDENT PHYSICIAN COMMUNICATION DYNAMICS by Thompson H. Forbes III April, 2017 Director of Dissertation: Elaine S. Scott, PhD, RN, NE-BC Major Department: College of Nursing Communication between nurses and physicians frequently occurs in the delivery of care to patients in the acute healthcare setting. In an environment where a person’s life and well- being depends upon accurate communication, it becomes an essential component of care delivery and care coordination among health professionals. Investigations of how physician-nurse relationships contribute to the physician’s value of nursing and nursing communication do not exist. The purpose of this study is to uncover how resident physicians relate to nurses as members of the healthcare team and how nursing communication is valued. This study followed constructivist grounded theory to develop a substantive theory that explains how relationships influence nurse and resident physician communication. Interviews were conducted with 15 internal medicine resident physicians at an academic medical center in a southeastern state. The overarching theme for this study was getting things done, which was comprised of three theoretical categories: shifting communication, accessing nurse’s knowledge, and determining the team. The relationship between these theoretical categories create a context for understanding how communication between nurses and resident physicians influences teamwork brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by ScholarShip