Voices in the record.

In spite of its centrality to the work of nursing, documentation of care (charting) has received a cookbook approach in the professional literature, in schools of nursing and in health care institutions. This article uses the controversies surrounding the home care record since the nineteenth century to propose the concept of discourse as a means to explore the political and professional dynamics that accompany the recording process. It is argued that new ways to document care are required to reflect not only the diverse "fellowship of discourse" but also the complex reality of modern patient care.