The war exploits of Australian Army nurses have been represented in a number of literary sources, but there is a paucity of data about the nurses who served in the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). Using descriptive interpretive historiography, with a central focus on oral testimony, this paper aims to highlight the culturally rich and diverse environment of Malaya in the 1950s. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four women from the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps to expose their experiences and perceptions of the Malayan environment and its people. The information provided by these nurses was subjected to manual thematic analysis resulting in the emergence of a number of themes. One prominent theme, Malaya's cultural diversity, was chosen for this paper because it contained an abundant source of new and rich data. To protect the identities of the informants pseudonyms were used in the presentation of the oral narratives. This approach led to revelations about how Australian women, with limited knowledge or exposure to other cultural groups, engaged in work and leisure time pursuits in Malaya's exotic cultural milieu.
This paper explores the use of pseudonyms in a historical study that weaves oral testimony throughout the narrative. The research was undertaken to unveil the experiences of Australian Army nurses in Malaya's Communist insurgency (1948-1960). Thirty-three women from the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps served in this conflict termed the Malayan Emergency, but only four nurses could be located for this study. After almost fifty years of silence the female nursing voice emerged as the informants spoke at interview of their unique personal and military experiences in Malaya. It is acknowledged that assigning the nurse informants pseudonyms, as opposed to using their names, constitutes a significant deviation from the established traditions of oral history. However, it is argued that the use of pseudonyms provided an opportunity for candid disclosure by the nurses on a range of topics whilst keeping the informants safe from adverse public or military scrutiny.
This paper highlights the role of women from the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps who served in the Malayan Emergency. The British administrators of Malaya declared an Emergency in 1948 in response to threats posed by Chinese Communist Terrorists. Australia was slow to support Britain, but in 1955 Australian ground troops, accompanied by six Army nurses were deployed to Malaya. The nurses worked in British Military Hospitals, continuing the traditions of their antecedents; yet their contributions remain hidden from view. The exact number of Australian nurses who served in the Emergency is unknown, because of the poor record-keeping of the Southeast Asian conflicts. However, it is estimated that 33 Australian Army nurses served in Malaya from 1955, with some continuing their service into the early 1960s. The experiences of four of these nurses are revealed in this paper: they are no longer invisible partners.
This Policy Review sourced opinions from experts in cancer care across low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to build consensus around high-priority measures of care quality. A comprehensive list of quality indicators in medical, radiation, and surgical oncology was identified from systematic literature reviews. A modified Delphi study consisting of three 90-min workshops and two international electronic surveys integrating a global range of key clinical, policy, and research leaders was used to derive consensus on cancer quality indicators that would be both feasible to collect and were high priority for cancer care systems in LMICs. Workshop participants narrowed the list of 216 quality indicators from the literature review to 34 for inclusion in the subsequent surveys. Experts' responses to the surveys showed consensus around nine high-priority quality indicators for measuring the quality of hospital-based cancer care in LMICs. These quality indicators focus on important processes of care delivery from accurate diagnosis (eg, histologic diagnosis via biopsy and TNM staging) to adequate, timely, and appropriate treatment (eg, completion of radiotherapy and appropriate surgical intervention). The core indicators selected could be used to implement systems of feedback and quality improvement.