Postmodern pedagogy and the nursing curriculum: collaborating for excellence.

Nursing in developed and developing countries alike has made, or is making, the move from apprenticeship and service-driven models of nurse education to those situated in and determined by the higher education sector. In Australia this move was made some twenty years ago. In this paper I present the epistemological and operational contours of a highly successful collaboration between the Tasmanian School of Nursing & Midwifery and St Vincent's Private Hospital, Sydney. In educational terms this collaborative curriculum is forged from a postmodern pedagogy. This means both student and teacher become reciprocal agents in the making of (new) knowledge arising out of a praxis-oriented curriculum whereby theory informs practice and practice mutually informs theory. Both the university and the hospital are significant beneficiaries of this professional/business partnership and as a result, the oft discussed 'theory/practice divide' is thwarted in its conceptualisation and articulation through the ways the university (theory) and the hospital (practice) amalgamate through their combined responsibility for the students' success.