“Body Work”: Nurses and the Delegation of Medical Technology at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, 1947-1972

The absence of ordinary women from histories of science and technology may be partially explained by what has been excluded as science, as well as who have been excluded as women of science. Although the delegation of medical technology to Ontario nurses increased rapidly during the mid-twentieth century, we know very little regarding how these ordinary women engaged in science and medical technology through the everyday practice of "body work." Gender structured the working relationships between predominantly-male physicians and predominantly-female nurses, shaping the process of delegation and generating significant changes in nurses' work as well as who provided bedside care. Trained nurses parlayed these new technological skills to their advantage, enabling the extension of technological care at the bedside and assuring their roles as essential for the functioning of the hospital system.L’absence de femmes ordinaires dans l’histoire des sciences et de la technologie peut en partie s’expliquer par ce qui a été exclu des sciences et par qui a exclu les femmes des sciences. Si la délégation de la technologie médicale aux infirmières de l’Ontario s’est accélérée dans la seconde moitié du 20e siècle, nous en savons très peu sur ces femmes ordinaires oeuvrant dans le domaine des sciences et de la technologie médicale par leur pratique quotidienne du « travail corporel ». Cet article examine la façon dont les relations marquées par les rapports sociaux de sexes entre le personnel medical, à prédominance masculine, et le personnel infirmier, à prédominance feminine, ont façonné un processus de délégation qui a transformé tant le travail infirmier que l’identité des personnes travaillant au chevet des malades. Les infirmières diplômées ont mis à profit leurs nouvelles competences techniques, permettant un élargissement des usages de la technique au chevet des patients et se rendant elles-mêmes essentielles au fonctionnement du système hospitalier

Front Lines and Frontiers: War as Legitimate Work for Nurses, 1939–1945

Over 4,000 nurses served with the Canadian armed forces during the Second World War, comprising a second generation of military nurses known by rank and title as Nursing Sisters. Military medical records and personal accounts reveal that military nurses enjoyed an elite professional status based on their relative closeness to the front lines of combat and to the frontiers of medical technology. Reductions in morbidity and mortality rates were frequently attributed to the presence of Nursing Sisters in forward field units. While Nursing Sisters capitalized on their position within the armed forces to enhance their expertise and develop expanded practice roles, such efforts were contingent on geographical setting, the availability of physicians and medical orderlies, and the social construction of medical technologies as men’s or women’s work. Flexibility and autonomy were more evident closer to the front lines, where patient acuity was higher, skilled personnel fewer, and risk-taking more acceptable. Such flexible boundaries, however, were “for the duration” only. Plus de 4 000 infirmières ont servi dans les forces armées canadiennes durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, formant une deuxième génération d’infirmières militaires. On découvre à l’étude des dossiers médicaux militaires et des récits personnels que les infirmières militaires jouissaient d’un statut professionnel d’élite du fait d’être à proximité relative des zones de combat et aux premières loges de la technologie médicale. La réduction des taux de morbidité et de mortalité étaient souvent attribuée à la présence des infirmières militaires dans les unités de campagne sur les fronts de guerre. Si les infirmières militaires profitaient de leur position au sein des forces armées pour gagner en expertise et accroître leur rôle de praticiennes, de tels efforts étaient fonction de l’emplacement géographique, de la disponibilité de médecins et de préposés aux soins et de la construction sociale voulant que les technologies médicales soient du ressort des hommes ou des femmes. Il y avait davantage de souplesse et d'autonomie près des lignes de front, où l’acuité des besoins du patient était plus grande, le personnel qualifié, moins nombreux et les risques, plus acceptables. Cette flexibilité ne valait toutefois que « pour la durée » du conflit

Yvonne McEwen. In the Company of Nurses: The History of the British Army Nursing Service in the Great War.

Review of Yvonne McEwen. In the Company of Nurses: The History of the British Army Nursing Service in the Great War

Yvonne McEwen. In the Company of Nurses: The History of the British Army Nursing Service in the Great War.

Review of Yvonne McEwen. In the Company of Nurses: The History of the British Army Nursing Service in the Great War

"Officers and ladies": Canadian Nursing Sisters, women's work, and the Second World War

Canadian nurses volunteered for military service in overwhelming numbers during the Second World War (1939--1945), comprising a second generation of military nurses known by rank and title as Nursing Sisters. Prevailing discourses portray them as 'extraordinary women,' patriots, heroines, feminists, and technological change agents. A small, diffuse body of literature documents their enlistments and postings but we know relatively little regarding how multiple identities and variables intersected to shape their experiences. This research examines Canadian military nurses' work from a feminist perspective through the lens of medical technology and discourse analysis, analyzing how variables such as gender, class, race, ethnicity, nation, marital status, and age intersected to shape their experiences during the Second World War. Based on oral histories, military records, professional literature, and archival sources, I ask: Who enlisted as Nursing Sisters? How did the military transform them into military nurses? What influenced decisions concerning where and how they served? In what technological and military contexts did they practice? How did these contexts shape the nursing care of soldiers? What influenced the transfer of technology to nurses? How did these experiences shape wartime and postwar civilian nursing practice? How did shared experiences as military nurses and as soldiers influence postwar identity as Nursing Sisters? War enabled the transformation of at least 4381 civilian nurses into Canadian Nursing Sisters who served 'for the duration.' They were posted to England, Northwest Europe, the Mediterranean, Hong Kong, and military hospitals across Canada, in Newfoundland, the United States, and South Africa. They worked in military general and specialty hospitals, hospital ships and trains, prisoner of war and internment camps, casualty clearing stations, field dressing stations, and field surgical units. Medical technology legitimated their presence within a complex military-medical-technological system while gender shaped their presence there as professional nurses, professional soldiers, and quintessential women. I argue that medical technology, gender, and war situated the Nursing Sisters as an expandable and expendable feminine workforce for the military, legitimated their presence at the frontlines of both war and medical technology, and facilitated the formation of a symbolic community and a social memory as military nurses