The challenge of achieving interprofessional collaboration: should we blame Nightingale?

Abstract

The goal of implementing true interprofessional collaboration within the health care system seems to be elusive. The historical role of medicine as primary clinical leader and decision maker is particularly entrenched in the Western health care system. Florence Nightingale, the acknowledged founder of modern, Western nursing, is often blamed for the subservient role of nursing and other female-dominated health and social care professions. Is it fair to lay the blame on Nightingale? This paper seeks to place Nightingale in context and to revisit her own words to explore the Victorian world in which she worked as a social reformer. It argues that Nightingale made pragmatic compromises to gain acceptance for the new profession of nursing; that these compromises had unanticipated consequences that persist - but are not unchangeable.