Presenting early research findings

On Friday I presented at the Positive Choices national conference which is aimed at learning disability nursing students. I was asked to give an 'uplifting' presentation linking history to current position of learning disability nursing. I based the presentation around the themes of becoming a learning disability nurse, role diversity, identity & change. Some of the initial findings were presented using vignettes of 6 participants and quotes. The quotes were presented as audio files with the quotes being read out by helpful 'friends' who were not participants in the research. This just added 'a little something extra' to the presentation. The paper was very well received and in the audience were leads from the Royal College of Nursing and Editors for national journals, who then asked me to engage with national research and write a paper. During coffee I discussed the research with a number of people who felt they shared many of the experiences within the short presentation and I feel this is something that will develop further throughout the thesis - the shared story as well as the individual.