The power to be different: is professionalization the answer?

Stephen Kermode, Southern Cross University

Abstract

Nursing, it seems, is 'professionalizing' in a period of history when some consider the professions to be in decline. This view is partly a reaction to the recognition that professionalization has only one legitimate characteristic - the appropriation of power. Power to control work and to control one's destiny are the fundamental characteristics of professions. Nursing seeks this power, yet simultaneously seeks to be qualitatively different to the established professions. This is a dilemma for nursing - to be simultaneously the same and different to the established professions. Professionalization, despite its limitations and problems may, however, be the only way of achieving the power to be different.