The power to be different: Is professionalisation the answer?
Stephen Kermode
School of Health and Human Sciences, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW
PP: 102 - 109
Abstract
Nursing, it seems, is 'professionalising' in a period of history when some consider the professions to be in decline. This view is partly a reaction to the recognition that professionalisation has only one legitimate characteristic - the appropriation of power.
Power to control work and to control one's destiny are the fundamental characteristics of professions. Nursing seeks this power, yet simultaneously seeks to be qualitatively different to the established professions. This is a dilemma for nursing - to be simultaneously the same and different to the established professions. Professionalisation, despite its limitations and problems may, however, be the only way of achieving the power to be different.
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