Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: The global nursing shortage severely impacts the health care crisis in the United States and around the world. Nurses are overworked and under recognized and patients feel frustrated and neglected. Nurses professionalize their labor to increase recognition of their contributions tomedicine, but these efforts focus on individualism and deemphasize the intimate nature of their work. Nonetheless, experienced bedside nurses know that intimate interactions help patients feel safe and comfortable during illness, which contributes to their healing. These interactions require specialized knowledge and skill, which contradicts the popular idea that whether or not one is caring is a personal attribute.In this dissertation, I found that nurse-patient interactions are in large part shaped byperceptions and constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. I offer the term professional intimacy to characterize how nurses negotiate intimate care and learn this specialized knowledge and skill set over time. I argue for collective recognition of professionalintimacy, that it can and should be taught to nurses, and that hospitals can better accommodatethis labor. Allowing nurses to conduct professionally intimate work will ensure better medical care for patients, which ultimately increases both nurse and patient satisfaction.
Author: Lisa C. Huebner
Language: English
Subfield: Research and Theory
Field: Nursing
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Pittsburgh
OpenAlex ID: W1582900619