Importance of psychology in nursing and how gender plays a role Dissertation

Importance of psychology in nursing and how gender plays a role - Dissertation Example With its over-arching knowledge and general applicability to various discourses, psychology has been successful in having an impact on the profession of nursing as well. The profession of nursing entails, â€Å"the use of clinical judgment in the provision of care to enable people to improve, maintain, or recover health, to cope with health problems and to achieve the best possible quality of life whatever their disease or disability until death† (Glasper & Richardson, pp. 95, 2006). As obvious from this definition, nursing is inevitably related to psychology and its inferences since it does not only deal with humans (patients) but also has a critical impact on how nurses deal with different patients, as well as on the element of care and strategies that focus on the stimulation of quicker recovery. Thus, in all aspects, psychology and nursing are highly interrelated with one affecting the performance of the other. However, there is more to it than just the element of care and its psychological underlying themes. What is particularly interesting, especially in the light of modern advancements in career planning and professional motivations is the issue of gender in nursing. Recently, what was considered to be only women’s profession, first of prostitutes and nuns and later on, by the virtue of Florence Nightingale, of decent educated and cultures young women, is now profession of young men. In specific, there has been a significant rise in number of male nurses in the past decade globally. Interesting to note; however, are the differences and similarities between these trends and behaviors of caring and treating the patients by male and female nurses individually (Miers, 2000). In this regard, this paper will attempt to discover these differences and trends and identify response patterns particular to each of them. Brief analysis of the literature indicated research of Kalisch & Kalisch (1987) who put efforts to explore change in the image of nurs ing profession all along the passage of time. In specific, concise description of their hypothesis is that perception of the female nurse as Angel of Mary in late 19th century evolved into that of Girl Friday prevalent in 1920’s. Subsequently, during World War II, the nurses played the role of Heroines followed by their image as Wives and Mothers in 1950’s and from mid 1960’s until 1980’s, they confronted their perception as sex objects (Kalisch & Kalisch, 1987). However, since after 1980s, the image of female nurses has changed radically. Nowadays, society look at the nurses as middle-aged, Caucasian, overworked and female representatives of the society. In addition, one can come across many reasons to evaluate how the femininity in the perception of nursing has accentuated. Specifically, nursing came about as a popular profession for women who wanted to step outside their homes and work. Therefore, since the very beginning, society perceived it as a fem inine profession. Several other researchers (Miers, 2000) noted that during the World Wars, this gender divide became all the more visible as the women took up the care-giving role and supported their male counterparts who went and fought in the battle. On the other hand, men were also discouraged as they confront rejection while acquiring admission in nursing schools.