THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY OF A FEMININE PROFESSION: NURSING

For thousands of years, the current practice of care, care that support life is primarily linked to the activity of the different roles that have been assigned to women. The simple image of someone who cares with love persists over time. Since ancient times, an image of a consecrated woman who cares for patients as a requirement of Christian duty and as a mean of salvation comes to us. More than a profession, nursing acquires a status of vocation. Nursing has walked a hard way throughout its history. It has increasingly becoming more valuable in recent times, and having more and more the feeling of the need of a self-identity by creating a specific body of knowledges. The desire of developing nursing into an independent profession is historical. However, until the sixties of last century, the practice of care was based on moral values, which were internalized by religion and inspired by the rules of convents and by professional and technical contents, collected from the sources of medical knowledge. The influence of Taylorism, the practice of nursing is governed by effectiveness criteria, giving greater emphasis on technique than on the relationship nurse / user. Analyze the professional identity of nursing means to review the entire social history. It encompasses also consider the fact that the profession is practiced mostly by women.