Free Transforming Care: A Christian Vision of Nursing Practice by Mary Molewyk Doornbos;Ruth Groenhout;Kendra G. Hotz Page A

goals are. This is what Maclntyre means by his claim that in engaging in a practice the goods of that practice are systematically extended.
    But let's shift our focus now, from nursing as a profession to the professionals who engage in nursing. Earlier the claim was made that when someone identifies himself or herself as a nurse, we are likely to make certain assumptions about that person's character and identity. For example,
if I meet a new member of my church, and
he introduces himself to me as a nurse, I
am likely to assume that he will be a reliable and level-headed individual and one
who will not panic in an emergency. Is
this legitimate? Maclntyre would argue
that it is. We noted that a practice such as
nursing involves collective activity. One
can't just decide to be a nurse. One has to have had the right education,
one's grasp of that education needs to be validated by licensing, and certain social structures must be in place before one can be a nurse in the contemporary sense of the word. How does this affect the individual's character and identity?

    At the most basic level, the internal goods of nursing shape the character of the nurse because they shape the goals and structure of nursing education. Imagine, for a moment, that we see a faculty member teaching students how to draw blood. Instead of teaching them the proper techniques
for assuring sterile conditions and for causing the minimum of pain, however, our professor teaches them how to draw blood from several clients
with the same needle because that saves money, and she endorses a certain
amount of pain because that ensures that clients will be taught to fear the
students and be properly submissive to them. What such a horrible professor is teaching is not nursing, but another practice that shares some techniques with nursing. This is quite different from saying that this professor
is a bad nurse. Instead, the point here is that she is not teaching nursing at
all, but some quite different practice, organized around internal goods of
control and power. It isn't nursing because its internal goods are not those
of nursing. The standards of this alternative practice are quite different because the internal goods of the practice are different, so that what makes
someone a bad nurse would actually make them good at whatever this
professor is teaching.
    But now think as well of how this professor is shaping the character of
the students she teaches. What she inculcates in them is quite different
from the traits that a nursing professor should try to inculcate in students.
The internal goods of the practice of nursing are not just external goals
that people educated as nurses happen to go along with. Instead, education as a nurse develops the whole person and shapes one's character in some
obvious ways and in others that aren't so obvious. Nurses learn to deal
with crises in a calm and rational manner; they learn to be tremendously
efficient in their use of time and energy; and they learn to provide emotional support and care while maintaining healthy boundaries (Chambliss
1996,30-41). Further, nurses internalize the values of the health care system
of which they are a part, placing a high value on health, on economic efficiency, and on protecting human life.

    People don't become nurses
to avoid seeing suffering or
to have a quiet day.
    DANIEL CHAMBLISS

    From the earliest days of the church, liturgical practices of healing have belonged to an entire family of "corporal
works of mercy" through which Christians have offered care of various sorts
to both members and strangers with
various physical and material needs. The
inclusion of these liturgical practices
within a broad understanding of care
suggests that there should exist no
sharp distinction between divine healing and medical healing.
    JOEL JAMES SHUMAN
    Both of these aspects of nursing practice, then, coincide with the role
that Christian faith plays in an individual's