Abstract
Nursing is generally considered to appeal to those who wish to care. It is not that doctors do not care but rather that the curative focus that comes with the practice of medicine can be interpreted as emphasizing cure at the expense of care in the provision of health-care services. In this chapter some background is provided regarding the relationship between nurses and doctors before an examination is undertaken of the popular misconception that nurses care while doctors cure. This purported distinction between caring nurses and curing doctors is exposed as relying on assumed gender distinctions and stereotypes regarding what it is that nurses and doctors do in their everyday work. Some discussion of the meaning and nature of care is offered before an outline of the way in which some nursing theorists have adopted the idea of caring for nursing is given. Some non-nursing influences regarding the nature of caring as a response to male-dominated assumptions about the value of caring are noted, and the chapter concludes with the suggestion that attempts to define nursing as caring have met with limited success.
References
Baly ME (1995) Nursing and social change, 3rd edn. Routledge, London
Benner P (1984) From novice to expert: excellence and power in clinical nursing practice. Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park
Benner P, Wrubel J (1989) The primacy of caring: stress and coping in health and illness. Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park
Coldwell Foster P (2010) Self-care deficit nursing theory: Dorothea E Orem. In: George JB (ed) Nursing theories: the base for professional nursing practice, 6th edn. Pearson, Boston, pp 113–145
Day RA, Paul P, Williams B, Smeltzer SC, Bare B (2010) Brunner & Suddath’s textbook of Canadian medical-surgical nursing, 2nd edn. Wolters Kluwer Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia
Duxbury L, Higgins C, Schroeder B (2009) Balancing paid work and family caregiving responsibilities: a closer look at family caregivers in Canada. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Ottawa
Edwards SD (2001) Philosophy of nursing: an introduction. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
George JB (2010) Theory of culture care diversity and universality: Madeleine M Leininger. In: George JB (ed) Nursing theories: the base for professional nursing practice, 6th edn. Pearson, Boston, pp 404–434
Gilligan C (1993[1982]) In a different voice: psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
GMC (General Medical Council) (2014) List of registered medical practitioners – statistics. http://www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/register/search_stats.asp. Accessed 25 July 2014
Kohlberg L (1984) The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages. Harper & Row, San Francisco
Leininger MM (1991) Culture care diversity and universality: a theory of nursing. National League for Nursing, New York
London ML, Ladewig PW, Ball JW, Binder RC, Cowen KJ (2011) Maternal and child nursing care. Pearson, New York
MacPhail J (1996) Men in nursing. In: Ross Kerr J, MacPhail J (eds) Canadian nursing: issues and perspectives, 3rd edn. Mosby, St Louis, pp 74–81
Nightingale F (1860) Letter to John Stuart Mill (12 September 1860), published in McDonald L (ed) (2003) Florence Nightingale on society and politics, philosophy, science, education and literature. Wilfred Laurier University Press, Waterloo
Nightingale F (1980[1859]) Notes on nursing: what it is and what it is not. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh. First published in 1859 by Harrison & Sons
NMC (Nursing and Midwifery Council) (nd) The nursing and midwifery council statistical analysis of the register 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007. http://www.nmc-uk.org/Documents/Statistical%20analysis%20of%20the%20register/NMC-Statistical-analysis-of-the-register-202006-202007.pdf. Accessed 25 July 2014
Noddings N (2013[1984]) Caring: a relational approach to ethics and moral education, 2nd edn, updated. University of California Press, Berkley
Potter PA, Perry AG, Stockert PA, Hall AM, Ross-Kerr JC, Wood MJ, Astle BJ, Duggleby W (2014) Canadian fundamentals of nursing, 5th edn. Elsevier Canada, Toronto
RCP (Royal College of Physicians) (nd) Palliative medicine. https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/specialty/palliative-medicine. Accessed 28 July 2014
Watson J (1979) Nursing: the philosophy and science of caring. Little Brown, Boston
Watson J (1988) Nursing: human science and human care: a theory of nursing. National League for Nursing, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Sellman, D. (2017). Nursing as Caring. In: Schramme, T., Edwards, S. (eds) Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8688-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8688-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8687-4
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8688-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities