Biomedical domination in nursing: a contribution to the emancipation of nurses

Nursing practice and the knowledge that supports it developed in close connection with biomedical practices/knowledge and physicians. This interprofessional and interdisciplinary relationship can be analyzed based on a critical and postcolonial reading, which seeks to emancipate and assert a disciplinary space for nursing that is both academic and professional. This text employs this approach and highlights the biomedical grounds of nursing practices and knowledge. It explores, in particular, power relations between physicians and nurses, patriarchal and gender relations, and conflicts in the definition of the nurse’s role. It provides a greater understanding of the aims of a postcolonial approach and its relevance in analyzing the discipline of nursing.