How do newcomers learn to use an object? Nursing students encounter with patients and objects in clinical practice

Newcomers have to learn everyday tasks in a practice to become competent practitioners (Goodwin, 1994) or members (Sacks, 1989; Schegloff, 2007). Over time they develop a professional vision (Goodwin, 1994) on the practice, enabling them to make relevant assessments about the practice and tasks. In the situated environment of education in healthcare settings, professional vision is entailed with a professional 'doing' in regards to interacting with other members (health care staff), outsiders (patients and relatives) and learning how to use medical objects (Mondada, 2011). A sphygmomanometer is crucial in the daily practice of assessing how a patient is doing. Learning how to operate it in situ is thus an important task.
I will present an empirical example from clinical nursing education in a Danish hospital, where students learn to use specific medical objects (a sphygmomanometer) in the setting of their future practice. From a participant perspective we see, how the participants: student, supervisor (and patient), moment to moment collaborate in the task of the students work in getting to know 1) how to understand 2) use and 3) try the sphygmomanometer out on the patient. Both notions on epistemic status and stance (Heritage, 2012) epistemic, cooperative and instrumental stance (Goodwin, 2007) is important, as is the understanding of situated embodied cognition in the workplace practice: the knowledge ‘understanding and use of objects’ that has been limited to the nurse, translates through an embodied situated interactional practice to the student and she moves closer towards becoming a competent practitioner.