Bedside Matters: The Transformation of Canadian Nursing, 1900-1990, Essay Example

In Chapter 3, McPherson divides the perceived role of nurses into four categories that seek (through the viewpoint of the period) to explain why women became nurses. These are “domestic nurturing; religious devotion, especially to the Christian concept of helping the poor and suffering; military duty and discipline; and scientific medicine.  Most agree, or at least infer, that the images of mother, nun, soldier, and the ‘physician’s hand’ combined to create a subordinate occupation” (McPherson, p. 75).  These “paradigms” (Ibid.) helped to structure the content of nurses’ work, which often tended to involve domestic and other housekeeping tasks rather than the performing of actual medical procedures.  Although I believe that nursing today receives more respect than it might have in this earlier period, I think there is still a tendency amongst doctors, patients, and the general public to perceive nurses as all-round maternal figures who serve their patients because of a deep need to nurture.  While this might be true for some nurses, such a stereotype only cheapens the diversity of the profession by excluding men and women who have entered nursing to become active contributing members of the medical tea.

In Chapter 4, McPherson discusses the state of crisis that affected Canadian nursing during the 1920-1942 period. In a sense, Canadian nurses were victims of their own success.  Nursing had become a sought after profession for many women, which led to an increase in the number of applicants to nursing school.  Eventually this pool of trainees began to undermine the availability of work for nurses who had already graduated.  According to McPherson, this problem was “exacerbated by the economic depression of the 1930s [in which] irregular employment, uncertain pay, and difficult, sometimes dangerous, conditions of work” (McPherson, p. 115)  made nursing a much less desirable profession.  I agree with McPherson, to a point, but it seems to me that the larger issue during this period was the very specific way that nurses were defined by their nationality, economic background, and marital status.  The public attitudes to nurses seems to have acted as a litmus test that measured whether or not general society was ready for women to embrace non-traditional professional roles.

References

McPherson, K. (1996, 2003). Bedside matters:  The transformation of Canadian nursing, 1900-1990. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.