Professionally one of Karen’s main areas of interests is around factors influencing nursing practice. These seemingly disparate elements have converged in a PhD in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Melbourne titled “Framing the Capricious: the Built Response to Infectious Diseases in Victoria between 1850 and 1950”. The study revealed multiple and sometimes conflicting political, scientific and social influences on the number and type of buildings provided and some very arbitrary distinctions in management strategies for certain infectious diseases. These revelations resonate within the contemporary practice setting in general and in ideas about infectious diseases in particular.