Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Aug 28, 1987 - Medical - 286 pages
An engaging study of the dilemmas faced by American nursing, which examines the ideology, practice, and efforts at reform of both trained and untrained nurses in the years between 1850 and 1945. Ordered to Care provides an overall history of nursing's development and places that growth within the context of new questions raised by women's history and the social history of health care. Building upon extensive use of primary and quantitative data, the author creates a collective portrait of nursing, from the work of the individual nurse to the political efforts of its organizations. Dr. Reverby contends that nursing's contemporary difficulties are caused by its historical obligation to care in a society that refuses to value caring. She examines the historical consequences of this critical dilemma and concludes with a discussion of why nursing will have to move beyond its obligation to care, and what the implications of this change would be for all of us.
 

Contents

Introduction The dilemma of caring
1
from duty to trade II
11
Chaos and order in hospital nursing
22
the ideology of discipline
39
the pupil nurse as hospital machine
60
Professionalization and its discontents
121
Nursing efficiency as the link between service and science
143
The limits of collaborative relationships
159
Great transformation small change
180
Conclusion Beyond the obligation to care
199
Appendix
208
Notes
214
Note on sources
275
Index
281
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information