Overview

An analysis of the efforts of American nurses to establish nursing as an academic discipline and nurses as valued researchers in the decades after World War II. Nurses represent the largest segment of the US health care workforce and spend significantly more time with patients than any other member of the health care team. Dr. Nurse probes their history to examine major changes that have taken place in American health care in the second half of the twentieth century. The book examines the major changes in nursing education and the place of nursing in the post-war research university, revealing how federal and state health and higher education policies shaped education within health professions after World War II. Starting in the 1950s, academic nurses sought to construct a science of nursing—distinct from that of the related biomedical or behavioral sciences—that would provide the basis of nursing practice. Facing broad changes in patient care driven by the introduction of new medical innovations, they worked both to develop science-based nursing practice and to secure their roles within the post-war research university. By their efforts, academic nurses transformed nursing’s labor into a valuable site of knowledge production and demonstrated how the application of this knowledge was integral to improving patient outcomes and healthcare delivery. Exploring the knowledge claims, strategies, and politics involved as academic nurses negotiated their roles and nursing’s future, Dr. Nurse reveals how state-supported health centers have profoundly shaped nursing education and health care delivery. 

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9780226822884

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No other volume comes close to Dr. Nurse in describing and analyzing the journey of American nurses to establish nursing as an academic discipline and nurses as valued researchers in the decades after World War II. Tobbell's book is a critical addition to the current scholarship and will be welcomed by nursing PhD programs and by students and scholars of women's studies and education and policy history. -- Julie A. Fairman, University of Pennsylvania

"""With thousands of US nurses leaving their profession in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and others striking for safe nurse:patient ratios, Tobbell offers a timely study of the post-WWII nursing project at publicly funded US universities, known as Academic Health Centers (AHCs). . . Dr. Nurse is well organized, and includes extensive endnotes citing original sources and a useful index. It is essential reading for understanding the disparate forces that have shaped the education, quality, and sufficiency of the US health care labor force."" * Choice * “No other volume comes close to Dr. Nurse in describing and analyzing the journey of American nurses to establish nursing as an academic discipline and nurses as valued researchers in the decades after World War II. Tobbell’s book is a critical addition to the current scholarship and will be welcomed by nursing PhD programs and by students and scholars of women’s studies and education and policy history.” -- Julie A. Fairman, University of Pennsylvania “Dr. Nurse is a very rewarding read. Using perspectives drawn from the sociology of the professions and feminist histories of science, Tobbell explores the ways nurse scientists are both undervalued and in high demand, then connects that paradox convincingly to nursing’s own difficulties confronting racial and class diversity among its practitioners. Her argument is cogent and illustrated by engaging case studies.” -- Nancy Tomes, Stony Brook University"

No other volume comes close to Dr. Nurse in describing and analyzing the journey of American nurses to establish nursing as an academic discipline and nurses as valued researchers in the decades after World War II. Tobbell's book is a critical addition to the current scholarship and will be welcomed by nursing PhD programs and by students and scholars of women's studies and education and policy history. -- Julie A. Fairman, University of Pennsylvania Dr. Nurse is a very rewarding read. Tobbell does a great job exploring the 'paradox in the status of nurse scientists-as being at once undervalued and in high demand'-then connects that paradox convincingly to nursing's own difficulties confronting racial and class diversity among its practitioners. Her argument is cogent and illustrated by engaging case studies. -- Nancy Tomes, Stony Brook University

Author Information

Dominique A. Tobbell is the Centennial Distinguished Professor of Nursing and director of the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry at the University of Virginia. She is coeditor of Global Health and Pharmacology and the author of several books, including Pills, Power, and Policy: The Struggle for Drug Reform in Cold War America and its Consequences.

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