Nursing as Caring

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.