Future nurse and young researcher
Maud Fontaine is conducting research into the media coverage of end-of-life issues, alongside her training as a nurse. Portrait of a young woman with an unusual career path.
During her degree in information and communication sciences, Maud Fontaine discovered research by taking part in workshops on reading scientific publications run by doctoral students. Enthusiastic, she decided to become a lecturer.
She began researching the mediatization of the end of life as part of her master's degree at Bordeaux III University, then joined Paris Sorbonne University for her thesis. At the GRIPIC1 laboratory, she encounters, in her own words, "a formidable research collective".
Her work focuses on journalistic writing about death. She comparatively analyzes the publications of three daily newspapers (Le Petit journal, Le Figaro, and Le monde) at two different times: in 1882, at the beginnings of the professionalization of journalism, and in 2014. "The notion of death creeps in everywhere: in obituaries, but also in notebooks, games or advertising," she points out. If a certain vocabulary has become obsolete, the representation of death as a figure of the limit has not fundamentally changed. "Death is a fuzzy object since it is defined as a passage between two states, an interstice between life and death. It is therefore a particularly interesting notion for the young researcher, as it gives her the opportunity to question journalism's claim to tell the truth about the world.
A vocation
During the first year of her thesis, Maud Fontaine worked in parallel at the Observatoire national de la fin de vie. She then signed a CIFRE2 agreement with the Centre national de ressources soins palliatifs (CNDR SP), thanks to support from the Fonds pour les soins palliatifs. She was already familiar with this sector: "My mother was an accompaniment volunteer in a palliative care service. She talked about it a lot and passionately. She passed on her interest and values to me, and I built up my own perspective as a researcher on the subject."
Maud Fontaine also experiences five years of teaching, as a lecturer and then ATER3 at Université Paris 13."Unfortunately, I couldn't devote the time I felt I needed to the students. I spent all my energy there, to the detriment of my research", she regrets.
Her work led her to meet many people involved in care and palliative care, and it was through these exchanges that the idea of becoming a caregiver herself was born, "to feel truly useful to others", she declares. That's why she decided to take the entrance exam to IFSI4 Bicêtre, which she passed. Today, she combines her nursing studies, including numerous periods of in-hospital training, with her research, keeping a busy schedule. For her third and final year, she hopes to experience home hospitalization and palliative care during her internships. "What's interesting about palliative care, as in pediatrics for that matter, is the holistic care of the person and the particular attention paid to pain and the patient's loved ones. It's an interesting philosophy, with very marked interdisciplinary work."
The right of nurses to do research
Maud Fontaine must, at the end of this year, obtain her nursing diploma and defend her thesis. Once she's got her two diplomas, she'd like to pursue this dual activity: "It's part of a certain psychological balance: caring is a practice turned towards others, which demands great rigor and alertness, it's a collective work where we share common values. Research, on the other hand, offers a different kind of temporality and reflexivity. I think it's important to be able to feed research into practice, and vice versa, even if it's difficult to combine the two."
Rarely any nurses are still doing research, however a dynamic is currently building in this direction, particularly in the field of palliative care. "I hope that hospital institutions and the academic world will allow nurses to develop this activity. I'm betting on the future: to make things change, it takes a lot of people to get involved! " she stresses optimistically.
- Groupe de recherches interdisciplinaires sur les processus d'information et de communication (EA 1498 Paris Sorbonne Université)
- Industrial agreement for training through research
- Temporary teaching and research assistant ATER
- Nursing training institute IFSI
Consult Maud Fontaine's profile in our researchers directory
Published October 8, 2020
Author : Delphine Gosset