Character As Skill: The Ideology of
Discipline
A person who
wants to study in order to be a nurse, teacher, or other field needs to go to
school and be organized. Florence Nightingale was a woman who influenced the
model for the training of American nurses in the nineteenth century. As Susan
Reverby notes, Nightingale believed that character was the skill… “critical to
the ‘reformation’ in both nursing and hospital care.” [Susan M. Reverby, “Ordered
To Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850-1945 ,(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987), 41.] This was very interesting because in order
for a woman to be a nurse, skill was not that necessary; instead, character was
important and that was the skill a woman needed to have. Another strategy for
women to enter in the field of nurse was “discipline” because they were
carefully trained for homes and hospitals. One of the biggest reasons why
Nightingale started a model and disciplined nurses was the fact that she faced
disasters in the military and civilian health care. She fought for the training
of “proper” nurses. Nightingale did not wanted to see this again and because of
her ideas and contribution to a better change in the world of health she wanted
to see character as a skill.
“The ‘Nightingale
model’ thus emphasized character training and strict discipline, a distinct
field of work for nurses separate from physicians, and a female hierarchy with
deference and loyalty to physician authority.” [Reverby, 43.] If a woman truly
wanted to be a nurse, she would need to be serious in this field and not mix in
feelings or problems while getting trained. Nightingale was very serious in
training nurses and perfecting them because nurses were needed in homes or
hospitals. She really wanted women who truly wanted to be nurses and were
passionate about it.
Also, behavior
was very important while taking classes in order to be a nurse. Behavior was
expected from every student because as in any family or institution, behavior
is widely from the expected norms. Since behavior was important, they also
needed to have spirit in order to become a nurse. They needed to be passionate
about being a nurse so the students could graduate and get recommendations
letter from physicians or nurses. At the same time, lessons were very crucial
and strict by physicians and nurses. This was to teach students a lesson and
once they graduated, they would change the way they were before. An example of
this is when a teacher told her graduating students, “You have become self-
controlled, unselfish, gentle, compassionate, brave and capable- in fact, you
have risen from the period of irresponsible girlhood to that of womanhood.” [Reverby,
58.] Students would become well educated, even though teachers were really hard
with them.
Many physicians
and nurses followed the Nightingale model that taught the students the proper
ways, manners, and character to have as a nurse while working in homes or
hospitals. Character was expected from students because that was a skill a
person needed to have. Even though rules were very strict in medical schools, students
were graduated with different personalities. Students would differentiate work,
way of conduct, and character as skill.
