Nursing In Nazi Germany Summary

I will be referring to Nursing in Nazi Germany from Western Journal of Nursing Research throughout this piece of writing. I chose this article because I’m interested in how nursing changes with politics as well as how some nurses obeyed doctors no matter what the consequences would be. The article contains information about nursing in history mainly focusing on the Nazi period. One of the main themes in the article is about changes to the social status of nurses and how it gradually came more of a respected profession throughout time. 1933 was a key turning point for nurses they became generally more respected and appreciated in society (Steppe H). Another main theme highlighted throughout the article is gender inequality and how

In the article some nurses judged people on their religion, disability sexuality and age, many nurses packed these people’s bags and lead them to where they would be killed resulting in the death of millions. Although those nurses who weren’t part of this and didn’t judge along with refusing to help out at concentration camps were in fact judged themselves and punished c Today nurses do not discriminate against people due to disabilities, sexuality and age. This is important because it allows everyone to receive adequate care. Another reason is that patients may feel judged so wont trust the nurse enough to tell them exactly what’s wrong which will make treating them harder. In adult nursing it is especially important not to judge older people who may find things difficult to do or get in an embarrassing situation. Not judging will make this person feel a lot more comfortable and better about themselves which could consequently help people recover faster if their more relaxed and comfortable. Mental health nurses shouldn’t judge people behaving erratically this is important because if the patient feels judged it may knock their confidence and self-esteem leading to a repeat of the behaviour. It is important for children’s nurses not to judge because children can be very sensitive and if they feel judged this may knock their confidence and if this happens it would be hard to build back

After World War Two many of them claimed they were not responsible for the actions they carried out on others, they were just obeying orders from doctors or people of authority (Steppe H). To some extent nurses have always obeyed rules, they have to follow these in order to practice and deliver safe care to all, for example the NHS Constitution. In the past, during the Nazi period and before, nurses had to obey physicians they weren’t allowed to question what they had been asked to do. Nurses were regarded as ‘handmaidens of physicians’ and were expected to obey and learn from them (Berghs M et al.) Whereas now nurses make more of their own decisions as well as carrying out tasks given to them, although if they feel they shouldn’t be carrying out the task they can speak up about this, where as in Nazi Germany and the past nurses were expected to carry out tasks without questioning. Many of the nurses who were obedient ended up carrying out war crimes, but would claim they weren’t responsible they were only following orders (Steppe H). Milgram’s obedience experiment shows that many people are obedient even when it means they may harm others. Results of Milgram’s experiment also shows that obedient Participants were ‘slightly more tense and nervous than defiant subjects’ (Milgram S). Linking this to nurses who obeyed in Nazi Germany it was a tense time and they would have been very nervous and may have been scared