ABSTRACT
Nursing's struggles for academic and professional recognition have been well documented (McNamara 2008, 2009). A recurring theme in debates concerning the development of academic nursing is disciplinary distinctiveness (Nagle 1999), particularly from medicine (Barrett 2002, Parse 2006). Attempts at temporal demarcation are also evident as a means of distancing nursing from earlier phases of its development (Katz 1969). The content, proper focus and scope of academic and professional nursing have long preoccupied nursing scholars (Donaldson and Crowley 1978). Many contemporary commentators agree that boundaries matter (McNamara et al. 2011) and recognise the importance for nursing's disciplinary survival and development of establishing and maintaining strong yet permeable boundaries between it and other health professional disciplines (Meleis 2007).
