70 ■ I: HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR ROLE DELINEATION
■ CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
- How do you think the controversy over whether nursing is truly a profession might impact
the perception of the DNP graduate by other, more common doctoral- prepared health care
professionals? - As you read, there are many times in history when nursing roles changed but continued to
be limited by internal and external forces. Can you identify any particular forces that might
support or work against the proliferation of this new degree? - Do you agree that the role of the professional nurse is best described using a functionalist
perspective, and the role of the DAPN is best described using a symbolic interactionist
perspective? What about the role of the master’s- prepared advanced practice nurse— is their
role more structural– functional or symbolic interactionist? - Your new role will interact with two different populations: patients and colleagues. How do
you envision your new role evolving with each one? - As you are most likely very early in your DNP curriculum, do you already have ideas about
how you want your doctoral role to be different from your master’s role? - As a future nursing leader, how can you use historical research for problem solving? In
other words, can knowledge of the past prepare one for the future? - The information in this chapter points out some of the external influences that affected the
nursing profession, leaving nursing leaders with their hands tied. Do you think nursing lead-
ers are ably ascertaining the external influences that are affecting nursing today? Discuss. - Do you think this chapter points to nurses actively promoting their professionalism or pas-
sively accepting the judgment of others? Discuss. How will you advance your role as a
DNP graduate: active promotion or passive acceptance or maybe somewhere in between? - Discuss whether nurses were handed their place in the health care system or did they endeavor to
develop roles for nurses in the health care system, placing nurses where they were most effective. - Discuss why you are either a conservative traditionalist or an elite professionalizer.
■ NOTES
- Robinson (1946), who has written a meticulous and gripping history of nursing in White Caps: The
Story of Nursing , indicates that five separate entities lay claim to the status of the “first nursing
school or first training program for nurses,” including New York Hospital (1798), Nurse Society of
Philadelphia (1828), and the New York Infirmary (1857). However, Robinson favors the authenticity
of the more substantial programs established first at the Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia in 1863,
which was the first 6- month curriculum, and then next a 12- month curriculum founded at New
England Hospital in 1872. - Is it time for a new acronym to describe this— DAPN for the doctoral advanced practice nurse and
DAPRN for a description of the practice- doctorate- educated traditional APRN who is a nurse prac-
titioner, nurse- midwife, nurse anesthetist, or clinical nurse specialist? - As diploma nurses only accounted for 5% of all new RNs, they were not analyzed in this calculation
(Aiken et al., 2009). - Northeastern University founded the first 5- year BSN co- operative education degree in 1971 and
Drexel University followed in 2000. - We should note this number has not changed since 2010, the year of publication of the first edition of
this book.
■ REFERENCES
Aiken , L. H., Cheung , R. B., & Olds , D. M. (2009). Education policy initiatives to address the nurse
shortage in the United States. Health Affairs (Project Hope) , 28 ( 4 ), w646 – w656.