Hallam, Julia (1995) Nursing the image : popular fictions, recruitment and nursing identity 1950-1975. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines popular images of nursing and nurses and their relation to issues
of professional practice and personal identity in the changing health care climate of
post-war Britain. The study explores issues of representation in British films,
romantic novels and television programmes, as well as in the recruitment literature
produced by the government and the profession. Case studies and autobiographical
writings are used to situate these images in the context of personal nursing identities.
An analysis of the literature on images of nursing in Britain reveals a dependency on
North American empirical research in spite of the very different institutional
frameworks of both the media and the health care system in Britain. This thesis
contributes a substantive empirical investigation of popular representations of nurses,
nursing and nursing life in Britain focusing on popular fictional forms. The thesis
argues distinctively that there is a strong correlation between these forms, images
used to attract young women to the profession, professional nursing ideologies and
models of nursing practice. An analytical focus on representations of class, gender
and race reveals a white middle-class feminine ethos underpinning claims to
professional autonomy and practice. This image is located as a source of internecine
debates and struggles in nursing throughout the post war period.
Case studies and autobiographies personalise the political struggles outlined above,
placing individual experiences of becoming a nurse in the context of training and
working in a rapidly changing health care environment. A history of nursing focusing
on the experience of skilled practitioners has yet to be written; this work is an initial
contribution to that effort.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	R Medicine > RT Nursing
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Nurses -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century, Nurses in literature, Nurses on television, Nurses -- Recruiting -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century
Official Date:	June 1995
Dates:	Date Event June 1995 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for the Study of Women and Gender
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Lovell, Terry
Extent:	2 v. (vi, 420 leaves)
Language:	eng

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