Nursing: A profession?
Last up-dated 24.02.06
This can be a challenging topic. What is a profession? That really has to be where you start. The meaning of 'profession' and 'professionalisation' to people using the term has changed over time, it meant something different to our grandparents. In addition the people who write and think about these things have modified their ideas as our understanding of society has changed. A good starting point would be to review some of the issues identified as significant in one of the broad texts about nursing. Perhaps the most accessible is:
Dingwall, R., A. M. Rafferty, and C. Webster. An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing. London: Routledge, 1988.
Use the index to trace the issues which you are interested in.
It might be interesting to use the contemporary views to structure your discussion. Several nineteenth century observers had clear ideas of what they thought a profession was and published their thoughts:
'Nursing as a profession.' British Medical Journal. (January 4th 1873): 14.
Ferguson, H. M., 'The problem of the trained nurse' National Review (October 1905): 46.
Perhaps the issue most frequently identified as symbolising professionalisation is State Registration. When the doctors became publicly recognised as a profession in 1858 the General Medical Council and the Medical Register were set up.
Fenwick, E. G., 'State registration of trained nurses.' Nineteenth Century. 47 (June 1910): 1058.
Ferguson, H. M., 'The State Registration of nurses.' Nineteenth Century. 55 (February 1904): 312.
Later historians have commented upon the registration issue.
White, R. Some political influences surrounding the Nurse's Registration Act 1919. Journal of Advanced Nursing 1 (1976): 209-217.
Biographical sketches of some of the individuals involved can be helpful but be careful, some of them are NOT helpful, beware of hagiography. A reliable source of biographical material about some of these women is Susan McGann's book:
McGann, S., The Battle of the Nurses, London: Scutari Press, 1992.
The subjects McGann selected were all involved in some way in the founding of another of the 'symbols' which are sometimes seen as demonstrating the acquisition of professional status, the Royal College of Nursing.
Other episodes could also be cited which may symbolise this process:
Davies, C., 'Four events in nursing history a new look.' Nursing Times Occ Papers 74, No 17 (1978): 65-68. 44
As you will have noticed by now, most nurses are women. An important recent scholarly debate has focused on the influence of gender in society. This has had an impact on thinking about nursing. An important question posed by several writers has asked, where have the ideas come from which allow us to describe and define the term 'profession'? One answer is that they have been arrived at by analysing the features displayed by a number of predominantly male occupations. How far can the conclusions of such analyses be applied to the female occupation of nursing? Are they appropriate at all?
An important book which focuses on these issues is:
Davies, C. Gender and the Professional Predicament in Nursing. Buckingham: Open University Press 1995.
There are also a number of articles which explore this issue which you will find enlightening:
Gamarnikow, E. 'Nurse or woman: gender and professionalism in reformed nursing 1860-1923.' In Anthropology and nursing. eds. P. Holden and J. Littlewood. London: Routledge, 1991.
Witz, A., 'Patriarchy and Professions: the gendered politics of occupational closure.' Sociology 24 (1990): 675-690.
The last of these articles brings us on to another issue which has haunted nursing and has not always been clearly thought through. Has social class been influential in the development of nursing? If you have looked at Susan McGann's book you will be aware that all the women in positions of influence who she wrote about were from substantial middle class backgrounds. A brief look over things makes it clear that most of the bedside nurses were not from the same background. Several writers have begun to explore this issue:
Simnett, A., 'The pursuit of respectability: women and the nursing profession 1860-1900.' In Political Issues In Nursing Past, Present and Future 2. R. White, ed. 1-24. London: John Wiley and Sons. 1986.
