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aspects of nursing may hold more social, cultural and symbolic capital
than others. I question the image and status of nursing in hospital ward
settings that affect nurses today and possibly may still impact on the
attitudes towards reflection in the ward.
The history of nursing is not a dominant discourse in the nursing field and
in my organisation does not feature in the student nurse‘s curriculum.
Perhaps this mirrors a reluctance to learn from the past that is mirrored in
the ―paradox of the busy syndrome‖. There is a parallel tension here with
learning from reflective practice: how much of one‘s past does one reveal?
It is important to treat these historical accounts cautiously as they are likely
to reflect the dominant discourse or political aspirations of the time as well
as those recounting the past.
Versluysen (1980) argued it was during the 19 th Century that medicine
tried to establish itself as a profession. In so doing, women from all levels
of society who prior to this time had practised healing, midwifery, physician
and surgical work as part of their domestic craft became excluded from the
early medical profession. These women included educated ladies and
peasant rural women many of whom gained small payments for their
services away from the family home. For most women, however, these
skills were practised on family and neighbours as part of a community
expectation, with no payments received. In many instances these women
gained more experience and arguably were as skilled if not more so as
their male counterparts who usually were poorly educated and practised
from barbers shops; very few physicians at this time possessed a degree.
Versluysen (1980) argued it was a deliberate gendered and political act to
create distinctions between ‗curing‘ and ‗caring‘ functions which until this
time had not been separated. This served to increase the status of the
male doctors when in 1858 they created their society of physicians and set
about establishing a ‗profession‘. Consequently the status and skill of the
women who operated in the same field of practice was undermined and
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