ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an autobiography of the author and presents her experience in nursing. She trained on the cusp of the transition in nursing from the ‘strong service ethos’ of the 1950s to the ‘medical ideologies of cure rather than nursing ideologies of care’ that developed in the 1970s, and continue today: from the Florence Nightingale ‘patient-centred’ tradition, to the ‘nurse-centred’ model; from hospital-based training to campus education, degree status and the opportunity of a more flexible career path. The 1960s heralded the rapid diagnostic and medical advances that would lead to the financial shortfalls, health reforms, increased patient turnover and bureaucratic proliferation of the next four decades. The Nightingale-inspired ‘synthesis of both art and science’ was redefined as ‘a multidimensional profession that reflects the needs and values of society, implements the standards of professional performance and care, meets the needs of each client, and integrates current research and evidence-based findings to provide the highest level of care’.
