Becoming an A & E nurse.

This is the first of four papers which examine the work of Accident and Emergency (A & E) nurses. The descriptions in this and the following three papers have emerged from an ethnomethodological study which sought to obtain the views of what A & E nurses believed their work to be. All are rooted in nurses' accounts of the ways in which nursing work is talked about and accomplished within the A & E setting. It should be noted that all four papers describe the ordinary rather than the extraordinary and should hold no surprises for those familiar with A & E nursing work. This first paper explores the ways in which nurses become A & E nurses, however, before descriptions can be put forward, an introduction to the study from which they have emerged needs to be made.