What is Nursing Professionalizaion? : Nurses' Autonomy and Patients' Self-Control

Abstract

The social movement of nursing professionalizaion has been related to the criticism of modern curing-centered medicine and has demanded the medicine of "for patients" caring. However the relationship between both of the suggestions has been not so clear. In this paper, I try to make it clear from the research of B hospital where the nurses have improved nursing duties since about 8 years ago. The 'medicine' in B hospital is called as 'patient-centered medicine' and the purpose of it is that patients control their health by themselves. Then the nurses in B hospital have regarded their duties as accomplishment of the patients' 'independent life' with patients themselves.