Devices & Desires: Gender, Technology, and American Nursing

This book changed the way I nurse, the way I think of myself as a nurse and the way I think about nursing, in fact, the way I think about myself as a person. It makes me realize that if nurses are to be more than technicians, that nursing is primarily an ethical exercise. Who you are, your character, directs what you do with the knowledge you have. Any skill, nursing or otherwise, can be used for good or ill. It is the one wielding the skill that aims at the mark. Sometimes you miss, but if you don't aim, hitting is just dumb luck and a poor bet. I apply the same logic to physicians, plumbers, priests, politicians, judges, and garage mechanics. Margaret Sandelowski, I hope you read this. Thanks.