education for the professional work of nursing is part of an ongoing development of
character that extends beyond childhood.
Education for the practice of nursing
Thus far I have intimated that nursing is both professional work and one of a number of
social practices. I have claimed that such work is of a fundamentally moral nature and
as such requires that attention be given to the moral education of those who engage in it.
I have suggested that while the moral education of those in compulsory schooling may
be sufficient for the development of good citizenship it is not necessarily sufficient for
professional life in the social practice of nursing. Indeed, in Aristotelian terms, those
embarking on a professional career in nursing can be considered as the very individuals
who require an education in ethics (what we would now understand as a moral
education) in order to move from what may be (more or less) morally acceptable
behaviour bom of mere habit and obedience to convention towards reasoned ethical
action; from merely acting morally to being moral. And this is necessary precisely
because of the extra-ordinary challenges to everyday morality faced by nurses and
others working in the health care environment.
Because nursing is a practical activity, nurses must be able to deliver safe and effective
physical care, particularly in acute situations, but nursing is more that a mere set of
physical tasks. Yet many nursing students have a restricted view of the nature and
purpose(s) of nursing bom of the experience of working as a care assistant in a health
care environment. Such experience is considered a desirable pre-requisite for entry to
pre-registration nursing programmes because, amongst other things, it suggests an
enduring wish to work with patients. Indeed, it is not unknown for an admissions tutor
to advise a potential recruit to get this type of experience before applying to join a
nursing course. However, the nature of care assistant work is such that learning on the
job will most likely be a form of training rather than an education and it is this that can
lead an individual to mistake nursing for those very particular tasks they have been
trained to perform. But ‘good’ nursing requires propositional knowledge (know that) as
well as practical knowledge (know how). To these we might add ‘know when’ and
something like this combination is what Aristotle calls phronesis, often translated as
practical wisdom, being the capacity to know when to do the right thing to the right
person in the right way and at the right time (Aristotle 1953 edn.). Phronesis is
Aristotle’s practical virtue; it is the virtue by which other virtues (those of the intellect
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