The global nursing shortage severely impacts the health care crisis in the United States and around the world. Nurses are overworked and under recognized and patients feel frustrated and neglected. Nurses professionalize their labor to increase recognition of their contributions to
medicine, but these efforts focus on individualism and deemphasize the intimate nature of their work. Nonetheless, experienced bedside nurses know that intimate interactions help patients feel safe and comfortable during illness, which contributes to their healing. These interactions require specialized knowledge and skill, which contradicts the popular idea that whether or not one is caring is a personal attribute.
In this dissertation, I found that nurse-patient interactions are in large part shaped by
perceptions and constructions of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. I offer the term professional intimacy to characterize how nurses negotiate intimate care and learn this specialized knowledge and skill set over time. I argue for collective recognition of professional
intimacy, that it can and should be taught to nurses, and that hospitals can better accommodate
this labor. Allowing nurses to conduct professionally intimate work will ensure better medical care for patients, which ultimately increases both nurse and patient satisfaction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-11202007-085905 |
| Date | 24 January 2008 |
| Creators | Huebner, Lisa Camille |
| Contributors | Ellen Olshansky, Cecilia A. Green, Kathleen M. Blee, Akiko Hashimoto |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-11202007-085905/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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