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Prompting professional prerogatives: New insights to reopen an old debate about nursing
Author(s) -
Ayala Ricardo A.,
Vanderstraeten Raf,
Bracke Piet
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
nursing and health sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.563
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1442-2018
pISSN - 1441-0745
DOI - 10.1111/nhs.12129
Subject(s) - process (computing) , set (abstract data type) , work (physics) , competitor analysis , jurisdiction , sociology , competition (biology) , nursing , public relations , political science , medicine , law , computer science , ecology , management , economics , mechanical engineering , engineering , biology , programming language , operating system
A profession is defined by neither a set of structural qualities nor a description idiosyncratic to a single culture. Rather, a profession detects problems in an area of work, intellectualizes that work, and offers solutions, developing a logic of competition with coexisting occupations. The best that structural explanations can offer to nursing is rigid, unmovable definitions such as “a semi‐profession,” whereas the ecological theory of the professions regards the continuous interplay among occupations cohabiting in an interacting system as the fundamental process of gaining or losing professional status. In this theoretically driven article we draw upon the notion of “social ecology of nursing” as a vector of development, arguing that nursing's professional status lies in its ability to adapt to “landscape” transformations and to protect its jurisdiction from competitors, equating fully established professions. In discussing the application of this theory, we invite readers to reopen a debate about the professional nature of nursing, considering cross‐national versions of nursing for more comprehensive definitions of the profession.