Student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing: between process of professionalization and professional development in Swiss and Belgien

Abstract

The predictable shortage of nursing staff, in Switzerland as in the rest of Europe, continues to highlight a recurring problem for public health policy. The issue here is not just questions about the care and treatment of patients or the quality of such care, but also about the conditions necessary for adequate staff recruitment and the long-term professional engagement of health care personnel. Training in nursing care at the Universities of Applied Science of Western Switzerland is also indirectly concerned by rationalisation measures currently in force in the public Activé par Editorial Manager® et Preprint Manager® appartenant à Aries Systems Corporation health sector. The training context affords a valuable opportunity for assessing the tensions between two types of logic: that of professionalisation based on the rationality of economics, and that of professionality, understood as the construction of the subject in his/her professional activity. The results of our research demonstrate the existence of fields of tension, encountered by students, between their process of professionalisation and their emerging professionality, tensions that also impact on the other pillars of professionalisation that are engagement, motivation and recognition. This qualitative study was based on biographical interviews, analysis of portfolios, professional projects and internship reports (evaluation of skills and competences by professionals), with an original cohort of 43 bachelor of nursing students in their third year of training in Switzerland and Belgium.