The beginnings of nursing in Mexico: Conflicts of power and gender, 1896-1904

• Main Author: Douglas C. Nance (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Universidad de Alicante, 2018-05-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 1699-6003; 10.14198/cuid.2018.50.08
• Keywords: Historia de la enfermería; Rol de género; Educación de enfermería; Poder profesional; Nursing; RT1-120
• Source: Cultura de los Cuidados, Vol 0, Iss 50, Pp 89-101 (2018)

At the beginning of secular nursing in Mexico the career was involved in conflicts of power, role and gender with medicine. Objective: This article explores the beginnings of nursing education in Mexico from a historical and epistemological perspective with a focus on power, role and gender. Method: Primary sources have been used from the Historical Archive of the Ministry of Health of Mexico and Columbia University of New York and Mexican nursing journals, among others. Results: The first directors-nurses in Mexico from 1896 to 1904, North American and British-American, were not submissive to doctors, which resulted in conflicts. The nursing school and the hospital have had a patriarchal environment where the "good" nurse has promoted the feminine values of piety, purity, submission and domesticity, resulting in the submission of the nurse and the exclusion of men. Conclusions: Organized Mexican medicine only accepted those who know how to obey and submit. The result was the segregation of the nurse to a subordinate position. These conflicts and their results were definitive in the path that Mexican nursing would take.