ABSTRACT
Medicine is a profession, and nursing wants to be one. Why? In this chapter I examine the role of the professions in society, the historical and present-day position of medicine as a professional occupation, and the potential for nurses to be enshrined as fully fledged professionals. Within this evaluation is a recurrent theme that professionalisation for doctors is an occupational tactic, founded on the principle of self-interest, which has been extremely successful.
