"If they can't tell the difference between duphalac and digoxin you've got patient safety issues". Nurse Lecturers' constructions of students' dyslexic identities in nurse education.

Summary Aim The paper explores how student nurses with a dyslexic identity were discursively constructed by lecturing staff in nurse education. Background An increasing number of students completing programmes of study in higher education are registering and disclosing one or more disabilities to their respective institutional support services. As students with dyslexia enter the nursing profession, they bring with them their own unique identity that situates their disability in a specific light. Nurse lecturers play an integral role in supporting all students including those with a disability; however no previous research has attempted to examine the language they use to construct students with a dyslexic identity. Critically, the internalised views of those with teaching and learning responsibilities who directly interact with students with disabilities have a critical influence on the nature of the supports provided, as well as decisions about students' professional competence. Design Discussions that centre on the inclusion of individuals with disability in healthcare education are shaped by language and diverse ways of understanding, therefore, an exploratory discursive design, examining how dyslexic identities are socially constructed by nurse lecturers is an overarching focus of the paper. Using narrative interviewing, twelve nurse lecturers from two higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland were interviewed during the period February to July 2012. Results Discourse analysis was guided by a narrative–discursive approach. Nurse lecturers identified ‘Getting the work done’ as a critical component to becoming a nurse, where expectations associated with efficiency and independence superseded students' right to accommodation. An implicit mild–severe binary existed amongst lecturers while categorising students with dyslexia, with those placed in the latter considered professionally unsuitable. These concerns are individually critiqued. Conclusion Critically, policy leaders must continue to consider wider sociocultural as well as individualised understandings of dyslexic identities in order to enhance inclusion prerogatives.