Global consciousness in nursing: an ethnographic study of nurses with an international perspective

Despite an ideal of international awareness, nursing education and professional organization have traditionally fostered social analysis within a rather local sphere of influence. However, there have always been renegade nurses whose idealism and global perspective have made them challenge the profession, adopt unusual career paths, or even leave nursing in favor of roles that more readily adapt to global awareness. Because the health care of the future demands an increasingly global-policy perspective, it is important to explore the relationship between the social structure of professional nursing and its ideological imperatives. This research employed ethnographic methods to study the experience of nurses involved in balancing what they perceived to be the discrepant perspectives of nursing and global awareness. The findings depict remarkable and inspiring careers within nursing and document the difficulties encountered by nurses in their attempts to apply global awareness to their professional nursing lives. Further, they generate practical implications for nursing education and professional organization to respond to the global trend toward primary health care policy and to prepare nurses to meet the inevitable challenges of the next millennium.