House and Street: Narratives of Professional Identity Among Nurses

Abstract

This study describes narratives of professional identity among nurses in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Semistructured interviews were carried out with 27 nursing professionals working in public hospitals in the city of Rio de Janeiro; in addition, the male:female ratio of graduate students of a nurse faculty in Rio de Janeiro was evaluated. Although the meaning of nursing is changing in Brazil, it is still strongly influenced by traditional values. We are observing in the last decades a shift in the meaning of nursing all over the world: from a female, domestic, and unvalued vocation to a more technical, masculine, and higher status profession. In Brazil, a coexistence of these two meanings, with a preponderance of the old traditional one, was observed. Change comes slowly. When the old model is challenged, it is often observed that the number of nurses per service decreases. The nurse often becomes the manager or leader of the unit. In these situations, patient care is displaced to less well trained individuals like technicians and nurse assistants who are not as well paid and, therefore, cost less to the system, while the responsibility of the results remains in the nurse's domain.